iTOWERS Designer is a result of focussed research & development efforts by a team of structural engineers over a period of 15 years and validated in a live industry environment.It’s a comprehensive software for analysis and design of Steel Latticed Towers. Exclusive versions are available for Power Transmission Towers and Telecom Towers.

Unique Features

3D Geometry generation with redundants – to study the realistic behavior of the tower thus achieving safe designs
Tower template – A powerful tool to generate 3D geometry with redundants of vertical & horizontal configuration square or triangular towers in seconds
Tower combinations – Analyze multiple tower combinations in single file
EL generator – Automatic effective length calculations for all tower members and for all tower combinations
LC generator - Easy tools for body wind load calculations, Loads due to conductor & ground-wire, Loads due to antenna & accessories and many more features, which no other software in the world can offer.

Unique capabilities

Capability to analyze and calculate new optimized tower designs
Design checking of existing towers, TL towers or MW towers
Maintenance, strengthening and up-gradation of existing towers to accommodate new conductors / communication cables/ new antenna
Modification of existing lines to provide new strength under new codes and new wind pressures

With the most advanced features, iTOWERS Designer cuts down the time for the design of TL towers and MW towers. The powerful tools of the software enable the designer to handle analysis and design of even the most complex tower geometries in a very less time.

Features

Sag-Tension calculations
Tower geometry with redundant members / defining multiple towers
Project section selection
Preliminary design
Loads computation
3D space truss analysis
Design
Single line drawings
Pattern generation
Other features

Sag-Tension Calculations:

Determination of sag-tension values for conductor and groundwire for different environmental conditions.

Tower Geometry with redundant members / defining multiple towers

Tower geometry can be built in minutes using powerful and easy to use tower template and geometry generation tools. Readily available patterns can be used to build the tower geometry. Option to define multiple tower combinations (i.e. tower with different body / leg extensions)

Project section selection

Option to chose member sizes that will be used in the tower design from a global section database. Various types assembled sections are automatically generated from the basic sections defined. The allowable shapes are:

Equal angles Single, double angle back-to-back, double angle star, quadruple angle star
Unequal angles Single, double angle back-to-back (on shorter flange, longer flange)
Circular sections

Preliminary design

Program assigns initial size for each tower member for the purpose of determining the wind loads and self-weight of the tower before processing the tower for analysis. These initial member sizes are determined based on the basic design requirements (limiting L/r ratios, limiting min. thickness etc). These member sizes will be revised according to the member forces that are determined after the analysis.

Loads computation

Automatic determination of wind loads, self weight, snow loads
Automatic determination of wire loads (conductor / ground wire) as
per IS:802-1995 and IEC-826
Automatic determination of loads due to antenna and other accessories
(ladder, cables, platforms, lightning rods)
Option to input earthquake loads and temperature loads
Option to input load trees (broken wire combinations are done automatically)

3D space truss analysis

The tower is idealized as a 3-D space-truss with 3 degrees of freedom. Comprehensive analysis by stiffness method is done by the module, for each tower combination and all the associated loading conditions. A powerful and proprietary equation solver (based on Gauss elimination method) is employed to solve the stiffness equations.

Auto modeling, which generates additional members (fictitious or stabilizing), is an inherent feature of iTOWERS Designer. There are different assemblages and situations that give rise to tricky problems like non-positive definiteness during solution of stiffness equations. In such cases, auto modeling stabilize the structure for proper solution of the stiffness equations. In addition, the designer can specify pairs of nodes to be connected by fictitious members of minimal area, in an input file.

Design

In addition to checking for primary design criteria laid down in the Predesign module, the members are checked for adequacy with respect to stress in tension and compression. The compressive stresses are calculated according to the formulae listed in the respective codes, adopted for the design.

The available design codes are:

AISC	ASCE 10-97	Euro Code ENN-1993-3-1	BS:8100
Egypt	Nigeria	BS:5950BS	EIA/TIA 222-F
IS:802-1977	IS:802-1995	IS:800-1984	IS:806-1968
ISO 10721-1:1997(E)

Single line drawings

Single line design drawings are generated automatically. These can be
exported to AutoCAD/Microstation.
Option to create design results in the tabular form (dxf format)

Pattern generation

The library of patterns used for superimposition on the tower profile, in the 3-D geometry generation module, is created using iTOWERS Designer proprietary, flexible and easy geometry generation tools.

More than 1500 patterns used in various towers available in the Pattern Library
User can upgrade the Pattern Library

Other Features

Database for 3-D Patterns, properties of conductor/ groundwire
Gust /Drag factors, Angle sizes, Material Properties( Steels & Bolts)
(All database are open-ended and user can upgrade these)
Automatic determination of effective length factors for member design
Online Interactive Design Calculator with a link to design module of
iTOWERS Designer
Extensive graphic support (zooming, panning, rotation, geometry filters)
Supply cost with actual price for different sizes in MS, HT, SHT
Report DXF formats
Tension only members
Automatic Design iterations till convergence
Powerful Auto-Stabilization algorithm
Automatic determination of design effective lengths
Design Checking by fixing the member sizes and the bolts
Option to Design Checking by fixing the member sizes and the bolts

Concepts

About iTOWERS TL (Power Point Presentation)

Towers Designed

During the last 15 years, using iTOWERS Designer IMI has designed more than 300 Power Transmission Towers and 150 Telecom Towers for over 50 national and international projects. During this period iTOWERS Designer program was greatly improved and many user requirements were incorporated. The result is a super-sophisticated software program.

A few prestigious towers design by IMI for KEC International Ltd.,

500 KV S/C River Crossing Tower (Nile – Egypt)
Type: Special (End Customer: Egyptian Electricity Authorit, Egypt)

Features
Height -	135.8
Horizontal Configuration.
Boom projection length -	20m

400/63 KV Quadruple Circuit Tower
Type :D/DE (End Customer: Tehran Regional Electric Company, Iran)

Features
Height	41.5 4 400/63 kV Q/C for
Special Configuration
Total number of members	14500
Total number of Load cases	360

This tower was analyzed with 100 tower combinations with 3 body and 7 leg extension. The total number of analysis processed that were carried out are 360x100 = 36,000 in one go.

Sample Designs

The various steps that are involved in a sample 220 kV tower design using iTOWERS Designer software are listed below with appropriate links to video files. Click the appropriate links to view video file.

Step-1: Input the Design Specifications.

Step-2: Create Tower Geometry.

Step-3: Input loads on the tower.

Step-4: Input data for 3D-Space Truss Analysis.

Step-5: Input data for Single Line Drawing and Load Trees.