Where can I find free structural design softwares for Design and analysis of Telecom Steel Towers/Cell Sites?
Answer:
Hah. Good luck.
I know a little about the industry, having worked for one of the big companies that "does this" and interviewed at the other.
Most companies that do this work have their own in-house program. They don't sell the program since it is their ONLY source of income. One company I know of rents it to one of their clients, provided they get a minimum amount of business from them every year in addition.
Anyway, you will need a few things to get anywhere on this problem -
A copy of TIA (Tower Industry Association)-222g (I think g is the current standard) standard, a working knowledge of ice environmental loads, since most of the controlling load cases in this analysis are "ice" load cases combined with wind, and a nice 3d structural analysis program. Then, if you've got the geometry of the tower, you can start working on it.
Wind load depends on the amount of ice on the element, so idealy the program would do this and check the wind loads from there.
I know of no free programs available that perform this analysis.
Even if you could find a free program, I think that you would find that you would require a very intimate knowledge of the design of towers before you could hope to use the program.
Most engineering design programs are written assuming that the users are familiar with the required building codes and standards, and materials of construction. I have used many, many design programs over the years and they all require a very good knowledge of the subject in order to use them.
Usually if you don't have sufficient knowledge to design a structure or piece of equipment without using a program, you won't be able to design it using a program either.
Programs are usually written to save time for those engineers who are in that specific field, so there is much knowledge that is taken for granted by those who write the programs.
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