Pole Upgrading and Hardening

Thousands of poles in service today, although adequate at the time of installation, can no longer safely carry the loads they are required to support.  The addition of new distribution lines, telecom equipment, and broadband infrastructure has increased loads beyond the capabilities originally intended, compromising the structural reliability, resilience, and safety of poles across America.

System Hardening Program

Ensuring the health and structural resilience of the wood pole plant is a key component of every utility's grid modernization investment.

A successful, programmatic approach to wood pole asset life extension can be implemented at a fraction of the cost of the utility's overall smart grid investment. These life extension programs include thorough inspection, preservative treatment application, and where applicable the installation of strength improvement trussing systems for pole restoration. 

These programs aim to preserve and restore pole strength to extend the useful life and improve the resilience of these critical assets. The results of such programs deliver well-documented financial, operating, and system resiliency returns.

Osmose's family of wood pole improvement products is used to enhance the structural resilience of the grid. Specifically, Osmose C and C2 trussing systems act as a structural hardening solution by improving an overhead circuit's resistance to extreme weather events. Without the restored strength the truss provides to the weakened pole, the overall circuit is at greater risk of a prolonged outage during a significant weather event.

Upgrade Capacity with the Tough Truss^® Upgrade
A utility’s grid resiliency is positively affected by a robust pole inspection and restoration program. Weakened poles discovered during the inspection and rehabilitated with an Osmose C or C2-Truss will help minimize the number of wood poles needing attention, as utility crews work to restore power to the grid after a significant weather event.

The Tough Truss Upgrade works in conjunction with sound wood poles to create a combined bending capacity greater than the original pole.

• Upgrade pole bending capacity by an equivalent 1, 2, 3, or more classes
• Save money – the cost of upgrading is often 1/3 or less than the cost of replacement
• Avoid the extra effort and delays associated with coordinating change-outs
• Upgrade an entire line without service interruption

Extensive testing has verified the theoretical expectations of the Tough Truss Upgrade design and Mother Nature has been putting it to the test since the early 2000s.

Whether a pole owner is looking to correct overloaded poles or simply add bending capacity to improve structural resilience to extreme weather, the Tough Truss Upgrade is a proven lower-cost alternative to pole replacement.

Tough Truss^® Extra

Tough Truss Extra upgrading and restoring system for common sizes of distribution wood utility poles. This new solution from Osmose not only restores decayed poles to code-mandated strength like regular trusses but also upgrades the structure’s bending capacity at the same time.

A Few Benefits of the Tough Truss Extra:

• Improves the structure’s bending capacity to a single class
  upgraded equivalent
• Decayed poles are restored to the code-mandated strength
  required of a single class upgrade
• Designed for common distribution size wood poles

To learn more, call your local Osmose professional.  Not sure who your local professional is?  Email poleinfo@osmose.com to find out.