Abstract

Timber utility poles are widely used in power distribution and telecommunication networks. Wood is subjected to deterioration with time, and routine condition assessment works are carried out for in-service timber poles to identify potential defects and their extent for renewal planning. These condition assessment methods need to be reliable and accurate to represent the actual status of poles. Incorrect interpretations regarding the structural integrity of poles may lead to premature pole replacements due to misdiagnosed defects or pole failures due to overlooked defects. The aim of this paper is to provide a state-of-the-art review of various condition assessment techniques for in-service timber poles. The paper reviews the conventional pole inspection methods, semi-destructive techniques and recent developments in non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques. The performance of these techniques is compared and their relative advantages and shortcomings are discussed. Further, the timber deterioration modelling techniques are outlined along with the probabilistic approaches for the condition assessment of timber poles. Finally, potential research gaps that need to be addressed in the future to overcome the issues related to the condition assessment of timber poles are discussed.

摘要

木材电线杆广泛用于配电和电信网络。木材会随着时间的推移而变质，对在用木杆进行例行状况评估工作，以确定潜在缺陷及其更新计划的范围。这些状态评估方法需要可靠和准确地代表杆的实际状态。关于电杆结构完整性的错误解释可能会导致由于错误诊断的缺陷而过早更换电杆或由于忽视缺陷而导致电杆故障。本文的目的是对在役木杆的各种状态评估技术进行最先进的审查。本文回顾了传统的电杆检测方法，半破坏性技术和无损检测 (NDT) 技术的最新发展。比较了这些技术的性能，并讨论了它们的相对优点和缺点。此外，还概述了木材退化建模技术以及用于木杆状况评估的概率方法。最后，讨论了未来需要解决的潜在研究差距，以克服与木杆状态评估相关的问题。