Project

Design of Floodlight Pole for

Playground
Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Problem description
Design Spiral
Assumptions
Selection of Geometry
Pole material properties
Load and Fixtures
Mesh information
Convergence tests & Plots
Results & Plots
Conclusion

Problem definition & Design Objective

Aim of the project is to design a floodlight pole to be installed in a
playground of XYZ. Pole is 10 metre high and has to able to
balance a dead load of 20 kg at the top and should have enough
strength to support a maintenance person for the person to be able
to climb to the top for maintenance purposes
The objective is to design a model which
Is able to sustain higher levels of bending moment
has lower flexural stress induced by the bending moment
has least deflection at free end
has a factor of safety between 1.5 and 3
reasonable costs of production

Assumptions
These are the assumptions that we have taken in the design:
1. Material will remain in elastic region
2. Applied loads remain constant in direction and magnitude
3. All cross sectional plane remains plane during Bending
4. Ground is assumed to be rigid

Design Spiral

Selection of Geometry
We started the design process by considering a hollow circular cross
section with base outer radius 120 mm, top outer radius 50 mm and
thickness 5 mm. After multiple iterations, considering our
requirements, we finally settled on a design with base outer radius 90
mm, top outer radius 40mm and thickness 5 mm. This design gave us
a FoS=2.1.
Considering other cross sections with same cross sectional area as
the previous design, we analysed octagonal cross sections with
circular and octagonal holes respectively.
Based on the calculations (shown in the next page), we selected the
design with hollow circular cross section as it had the least flexural
stress, highest factor of safety among the three designs
consuming same amount of material.

Pole material properties

We would like to select a material based on the following properties:

Optimum material strength

Ease of manufacturability
Ease of maintenance
Availability
Cost of material, manufacturing and maintenance

After careful consideration of various materials and their properties,

we decided that the pole should be made of galvanized steel.
Following are the properties of galvanized steel:
Name:
Model type:
Failure criterion:
Yield strength:
Tensile strength:
Elastic modulus:
Poisson's ratio:
Mass density:

Galvanized Steel
Linear Elastic Isotropic
Max von Mises Stress
2.03943e+008 N/m^2
3.56901e+008 N/m^2
2e+011 N/m^2
0.29
7870 kg/m^3

Loads and Fixtures

We have 4 loads to consider in the design process.
They are
Self-Weight
Mass of the pole is 154.288 kg and is assumed to act at its centre of
mass and the force is 1512.02 N
Dead load at the top
It accounts for the light fixtures at the top of the pole and is taken to be 20
kg and the force is taken to be 200 N.
Weight of maintenance person
Design has to be strong enough to support a maintenance person of 65
Kg and the force is considered to be 650 N.
Drag force of wind
Pole has been designed to withstand strong hurricanes with winds speeds
around 50 m/s.

Drag force =

1
A C d u 2
2

Density of air = 1.225 kg/m3

A Orthographic projected area = 1.3 m2
u Wind velocity
Cd Drag coefficient (Depends on geometry) = 0.47
In the worst case scenario with wind speeds of 50 m/s,
drag force turns out to be 935.593 N, which acts on the top most point
perpendicular to the axis of the pole.

Fixtures
Pole has been grounded using a circular base plate of inner radius 85 mm
and outer radius 140 mm and plate is fixed using 8 bolts of 20 mm
diameter and 27 threads per inch (tpi).

Mesh Information

Mesh type
Jacobian points
Total Nodes
Total Elements
Maximum Aspect Ratio(AR)

Solid Mesh (Tetrahedral)

4 Points
87727
44267
29.116

% of elements with AR < 3

0.28

% of elements with AR > 10

2.73

% of distorted elements

Time to complete mesh

08 seconds

Convergence tests
Test
No.

No. of Elements

No of Nodes

Max Stress
(MPa)

1.
2.
3.

17942
29176
38499

32853
58879
80484

76.26
86.59
91.36

4.

44267

87727

97.21

Max
Max Strain
Displacement
(cm)
21.81
3.12e - 004
25.04
3.58e - 004
25.28
3.84e - 004
27.68

3.66e - 004

Min FOS

2.7
2.4
2.2
2.1

Plots
Max Stress

Max Stress (Mpa)

Max Displacement (cm)

150

30

100

20

Max Displacement (cm)

50
0

50000

No of Nodes
Max Stress (MPa)

100000

10
0

50000

No of Nodes
Max Displacement (cm)

100000

Min FOS

Max Strain

5
4

Min FoS

Max strain ( e-004) 2

1
0
20000

1
40000

60000

80000

100000

No of Nodes

50000

100000

No of Nodes

Min FOS

Max Strain

Conclusions
We have designed a floodlight pole with hollow circular pole
fulfilling the necessary design requirements.

Bibliography
INGAL EPS : Data points for pole geometry
Drag Coefficient, Wikipedia:The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc, Web, accessed on 25.10.2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
Hurricane wind velocities (Fujita Scales), Wikipedia:The Free
Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, Web, accessed on
25.10.2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujita_scale
Structure of a report, University of Reading, Web, accessed on
25.10.2015,
https://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/studyadvice/StudyResources/E
ssays/sta-structuringreport.aspx