Panel session: structural reliability-based design of utility poles and the national electrical safety code

The 2002 Edition of the national electrical safety code provides basic safety rules for outdoor electric power and telecommunications lines and structures. The NESC specifies overload factors and strength factors in its strength and loading rules for transmission and distribution structures and poles. These factors have been selected based upon subjective criteria, including a combination of engineering judgment and experience. Although it is recognized that a long history of successful experience does provide a reasonable basis for the selection of these parameters, it is also understood that more objective criteria must be implemented to update and extend the NESC to reflect new materials, as well as to address the extended usage of structures to previously unforeseen applications. Thus, the American society of civil engineers has developed the reliability-based design of utility pole structures manual to determine appropriate strength and loading factors based upon objective reliability criteria. Members of the NESC have worked closely with the ASCE in the development of this important document. The NESC is presently developing change proposals to incorporate the essential results of the SRBD manual into the 2007 edition of the NESC.