If you have been to a night game, you expect great lighting so you can focus on the game at hand on the field. We may not think much of the lights but these powerful beams are supported on fixtures high up on poles and exposed to extreme wind loading.
Meadows Analysis gets contacted for all kinds of engineering challenges and analyses including everyday structures that are supposed to work without issue or fail. We have analyzed such lighting fixtures for 150 mph wind loads:
The fixtures we analyzed were cast from aluminum and our goal is to examine any stress issues:
In our engineering models with the prescribed extreme conditions, we found that some yielding may occur in the fixtures but they were safe at high winds of 150 mph.
We approached the problem with multiple load case situations with linear material models and dynamic pressure:
The fixtures showed maximum stresses around the casting’s stress concentrations but the material and design were within stress produced by the specified wind loads for the analyses.
These are some small notes and illustrations without delving into the specifics on this respective engineering problem and requirements.
You may see many structures and fixtures that may have gone unnoticed previously. Your safety and the performance of those fixtures have to be analyzed and engineered to perform in everyday as well as extreme conditions.
Are there some mundane performing fixtures that you need analyzed to ensure performance and safety?