Neara allows for a custom Pole Strength to be set directly as a maximum tip load, or calculated based on pole dimensions.

To set a custom Pole Strength, first select a pole. Choose either the Move and Select tool or Pole tool from the toolbar, and click an existing pole in the Perspective view or Profile view:

The Pole properties panel will appear in the sidebar, with the option to enable a Custom Pole Strength:

Place a checkmark next to that option to show the available options.

To directly enter a maximum tip load, enter a value into the Breaking load box:

Alternatively, if the pole material is wood, click the Calculate from wall thickness option.

This will reveal parameters that default to values of based on the current pole, assuming the pole is not hollow.

Updated the parameters if required, and then click Apply. Neara will update and insert the calculated value into the box:

The formulas used to calculate the custom pole strength is as follows.

The first step is to calculate the maximum bending moment:

The second step is to calculate the max pole tip load:

Note that this formula uses the default embedment depth as defined in the pole library (this is the Library free length in the screenshot above). Hence any changes to the pole embedment depth will not change the calculated maximum pole tip load. However the maximum bending is calculated using the max tip load and the default embedment depth, hence any changes in the embedment depth will be caught by the bending moment check of a pole.

For example consider the this scenario where there is a single conductor at 6kN @ 5oC. Note that in reality these poles would deflect however given this is using static the poles won't deflect. The custom pole strength is calculated at 40kN when the embedment depth is 2.35m (2.35m is the default in the library for this pole type). The maximum bending moment in this case is 646 kN.m.

In this scenario the strength reduction factor applied to the pole is 0.15 (defined in the environments), hence the pole has a maximum tip load limit of 40 x 0.15 = 6kN and maximum bending moment limit of 16.15 x 40 x 0.15 = 96.9 kN.m.

So if the embedment depth was now reduced to 1m then the structure will still pass the tip load check however will fail on the bending moment check given the bending moment on the pole has increased to 105 kN.m. Note this is a no wind environment at 5oC.