Are your structures compliant with the Standard?  The Telecommunications Industry Association’s Structural Standard for Antenna Supporting Structures and Antennas (TIA-222-G) is the industry guide for design and use of communication structures.

Many structures are designed by manufactures to meet a specification without the designer ever seeing the project site or fully understanding the owner’s needs.  Is it too late to do something about this once the structure is constructed?  The answer is, no.

Knowledge is gold and it is better to know that the structure is overloaded than to assume it is providing the reliability you expect.  Simply increasing the size of the cross-bracing or adding a few new members to a structure may increase the strength to within an acceptable range.

The Engineering Specialties Group (ESG) often gets involved in situations where a manufacturer’s designer specified a product that does not meet the environmental condition or the needs of an owner.  How could this have been avoided?  Proper specifications and engineering oversight of manufacturer submittals will eliminate this unfortunate situation.

We can help you prevent this occurrence by providing you with detailed specifications, dictating the design criteria which will produce a compliant and reliable structure.  We can also review manufacturer submittals to ensure that the structure meets the appropriate criteria.  If you already have structures in place, we can assess the compliance of the structures and determine the appropriate course of action to correct a deficient structure if necessary.  We pride ourselves on creative and rational solutions to tough problems.

This article was written by Steve Dorau, project manager and telecom infrastructure group leader.

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