Optimal Search Space for Topological Optimization of Transmission Line Towers

Resumo

Due to the vast territorial extension of Brazil and its hydroelectric potential, many power plants are built
far from consumption centers and in order to deliver electricity to these centers, extensive transmission lines (TL)
are needed. One of the main components of these lines are the steel lattice towers, which end up being repeated
several times in a TL. For this reason, an opportunity to reduce costs presents itself through the optimization of

these structures, especially when the dimension, geometry and topology of the tower are optimized simultane-
ously. However, with the inclusion of topological variables an uncertainty arises due to the definition of the search

space for the process of optimization. On one hand, if many variables are considered, the convergence may be
impaired. On the other hand, if just a few variables are chosen, great possibilities of mass reduction might be left
aside. Hence, the present work aims to relate the structure mass and its search space, finding a general rule for
templates selection by analyzing the optimization results of eight towers with three design spaces for each, where
the difference between these is the number of templates considered.