Finnish Steel Design Trading Ltd

WinTower

Overview

WinTower is an analysis and dimensioning program for self supporting transmission line towers. Wintower covers the following aspects of the design:

Geometrical model and load generation from simple tower and loadcase description files.
FEM-analysis of the generated structures.
Dimensioning of analyzed structures.

WinTower also includes a powerful visualization tool for creating wireframe images of the structures, their assigned and calculated load vectors and analysis/dimensioning results.

Software and hardware requirements

WinTower requires the following software platforms:

Microsoft Windows XP operating system or later.
Bentley MicroStation version 2004 or V8i CAD-package for one of the operating systems mentioned above (for visualization only). Note: Although we have versions for older MicroStation versions all the way down to MicroStation 95, support and development of new features for MicroStation versions older than 2004 were discontinued in Q1/2010.

The absolute minimum requirements for the hardware required to run these platforms and WinTower software are:

Intel® or AMD® processor 2.0 GHz or higher.
512 MB of memory.
900 MB of free disk space.
Graphics card supported by DirectX 9.0c

The recommended minimum hardware for running the platforms and the software are:

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2180 processor (2.00 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB) or equal.
2 GB of memory
Graphics card supported by DirectX 9.0c and with at least 512 MB of memory.

Features

Intuitive graphical user interface for management of design projects and their files.
Low machine resource requirements.
Highly configurable for different design specifications.
Integration with MicroStation CAD-package.

Documentation

WinTower comes with a comprehensive printed and electronic documentation covering all of the aspects required while getting familiar and using the software. The table of contents of the manual is:

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Software implementation
2. OPERATING SYSTEM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
3. DELIVERABLES
3.1. Files
3.2. Documents
4. INSTALLATION AND STARTUP
4.1. Installation
4.2. Startup
5. USING THE ANALYSIS SOFTWARE SYSTEM
5.1. General workflow
5.2. Managing the projects
5.2.1. Modifying the data files
5.3. Managing tower models
5.4. Modeler
5.5. Analysis
5.6. Dimensioning
5.7. Visualize
6. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
6.1. Analysis
6.2. Dimensioning
6.2.1. Profile table
6.2.2. Material table
6.2.3. Analysis data needed in dimensioning
6.2.4. Maximum slenderness
6.2.5. Critical compressive force
6.2.6. Critical tension force
6.2.7. Man load
6.2.8. General dimensioning procedure
6.2.9. Grouping of the members
7. TOWER DEFINITION
7.1.1. General parameters
7.2. Tower body parts
7.2.1. Field definitions for a body part
7.2.2. Profile sizes for field members
7.2.3. Materials for field members
7.3. Crossarms
7.3.1. Crossarm number
7.3.2. Crossarm geometry and location data
7.3.3. Field definitions for a crossarm
7.4. Guy definitions
7.4.1. Guy number
7.4.2. Guy parameters
7.5. Load cases
7.5.1. Number of the load case
7.5.2. Load case parameters
8. EXAMPLE STRUCTURES
8.1. Suspens.tow
8.2. Tension.tow
8.3. Corner.tow	
8.4. Mast.tow
9. MAINTENANCE