Climbing

• Steelcore poles can easily be climbed by additional climbing attachments such as ladders or steps to the poles.

Maintenance

• Steelcore Poles offer a low maintenance alternative to wood.

• Eliminates the need for excessive retightening of hardware due to pole shrinkage.

• No expensive inspection and toxic treatment programs are necessary for steel or concrete pole applications.

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Maintenance

• Steelcore Poles offer a low maintenance alternative to wood.

• Eliminates the need for excessive retightening of hardware due to pole shrinkage.

• No expensive inspection and toxic treatment programs are necessary for steel or concrete pole applications.

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Catastrophic Failures

• Concrete and steel poles are less subject to cascading type failures from a single downed pole than wood poles

due to the consistent and predictable strength attributed to those products.

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Fire Resistance

• Steelcore product offerings are fire resistant and reduce the liability associated with ground and pole top fires,

providing greater reliability.

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Ground Line Protection

• Our concrete poles require no additional ground line protection while our steel product offers options to enhance

service life of poles.

• Below grade protection needs to be determined by the utility as it depends on different factors such as soil drainage

and soil corrosion potential characteristics.

• The use of galvanization, ground sleeves and 100% solid polyurethane coating have proven to be an effective

deterrent against corrosion.

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Material Deterioration Solution

• Steel and concrete poles offer a valuable alternative by mitigating pole performance issues caused by timber rot

and fungi growth, decay by insects, material loss due to woodpeckers and damage due to ultraviolet exposure.

• Concrete poles are also an effective solution to corrosion conditions and high moisture content service applications.

Impact Resistant

• Concrete and steel poles offer exceptional resilience to surface impacts from minor handling and transportation

damage to extreme events such as vehicle strike incidents.

• The failure mode of concrete and steel materials is different than wood or fiberglass in that the material yields and

deforms in shape while typically remaining upright and in service.

Inspection

• Concrete and steel poles offer the value of less invasive inspection techniques and are more focused on surface

conditions. Advanced inspection techniques exist for below grade inspection and time lapse material monitoring

systems.

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Environmental Concerns

• Steel and concrete poles contain no harmful preservative treatment chemicals to maintain their strength and extended

service performance benefiting the users of poles in construction and the public domain which may have interaction

with poles.

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Sustainable Product Cycle

• Steel poles are non-toxic and 75-100 percent recycled steel content at manufacture. They pose no disposable

issues and offer a long term solution for regulatory pressures to buy recycled and recyclable materials.

• Steel poles can be re-purposed within their service life and are recyclable at the end of service life.

Low Life Cycle Costs

• The life expectancy of concrete and steel poles is two to three times that of wood, providing a cost avoidance

associated with future installation, maintenance and troubleshooting over the life of the structure.

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RAPID RESPONSE SERIES

Design of the Steelcore’s Rapid Response Series (SW / SWR and D-pole)

The two main factors governing the selection of Rapid Response Series shaft sections are the length of the pole

and the groundline moment capacity. The Series is cataloged based on these parameters. Two major definitions

have been made that dictate the shape of the minimum moment capacity diagram for each pole.

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Steelcore offers Steel (SW/SWR), Concrete and Hybrid (New Pole) poles that closely match standard wood pole

classification and offer the best choice among all materials for new and replacement construction. Standardized

poles are designed in accordance with ASCE/SEI 48-11 and the correlation of standardized Steel pole size to

wood pole class is based on Grade B construction.

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Multiple Section Pole Designs

Slip joints are designed for a minimum overlap of 1.5 times the maximum inside diameter of the female section

of the joint, meeting or exceeding ASCE / SEI 48-11, Design of Transmission Pole Structures. Flanged connections

are also available for all heights and classes.

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Field Drilling of Hole (Steel and Concrete) Steel:

Holes can easily be drilled using either a hole saw or stepped style bit. The stepped style bit works best since it

requires less energy to drill a hole. Drill speed should be at 300 rpm or less. Steelcore can provide factory drilled

holes in multiple shapes and sizes including knockouts upon request.

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Concrete

Holes are typically already cast in place. The factory should be consulted if holes need to be field drilled.

Use a rotary hammer drill with a carbide tipped bit or a diamond tipped core bit. Field drilling should be performed

from both sides of the pole to prevent spilling of the concrete on the outside face of the pole.

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Hardware

Most hardware currently used on wood poles works well with steel and concrete poles. Most all connections on steel

and concrete poles can be accomplished with through bolt hardware. Steel and concrete pole dimensions are uniform

and repetitive reducing the range of bolt lengths needed. Hardware components containing cleats and lags need to be

avoided. All hardware should be tightened to “Turn-of Nut” method.

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Guy Applications

A steel pole needs to be guyed if the wood pole it is replacing is guyed. The steel pole can be guyed just as you would

a wood pole using the same hardware. By using a stronger class steel or concrete pole, it may be possible to eliminate

the need for guys altogether. Steel and concrete poles can be guyed using the non-cleat hardware following existing

practices known to wood poles. Permanent attachments such as vangs can be welded into steel poles to assist field

construction.

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Insulation Analysis and Grounding

Rural Utility Services provides guidance of 300 kV minimum insulation strength for the basic insulation level (BIL) of

a distribution pole top construction. The solutions include using higher BIL pin insulator, off-setting wood cross arms

and adding a third bell insulator to the dead end configuration.

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Energized Line Installation

Steel, concrete and wood poles are generally considered to be conductive during hot line insertion. The same

safety procedures and precautions currently being used for wood poles should be used for steel and concrete

poles in these types of applications.

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Avian Protection

The most complete and up-to-date document on avian protection is “Suggested Practices for Avian Protection

on Power Lines: The State of the Art in 2006” by Avian Power Line Interaction Committee. These practices include

guidance of steel, concrete and wood. Steel poles provide an additional phase-to-ground contact point. Solutions

are a combination of circuit cover up and line construction clearances.

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Steel Handling Guidelines

The preferred method of lifting the poles is to use nylon slings. While a galvanized pole is very tough and abrasion

resistant, it is not recommended that chains be used when handling them. During storage, blocking should be used

to keep the poles off the ground and to separate each layer.

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Concrete Installation Guidelines

Concrete poles are usually erected in the same manner as other poles. Assuming that the poles were properly

placed before they were framed, a single-point pickup with a choker sling is usually permissible. The choker should

be placed well above the center of gravity. This means that as the pole is raised from the horizontal position, much

of its weight stays on the ground until the pole is nearly in the vertical position. Once it reaches the vertical position,

it will not be damaged by lifting its full weight with a single-point pickup

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