[TowerTalk] 45G leg bolt help

k7lxc at aol.com k7lxc at aol.com
Sat Feb 9 12:45:16 EST 2019


>  We had a local back in the Boston area who put up 120' of Rohn 25.
>  He didn't know about Rohn putting the bolts in the tower legs so he went out and bought stove bolts.
>  The tower didn't make it through the winter.
>  120' of Rohn 25 falling in a 1/4 acre lot is not a pretty sight !!
    Ouch!

    But I'm not following you. What exactly was the failure mode? High winds? Ice loading? I'm skeptical that is was because of joint bolt failure.

    The top ends of 25G legs are swagged so that even if there were no bolts in there, the tower leg would only go down as far as the swagging would let it. This is not catastrophic. The legs would be jammed together. Even if the bolts sheared, the downward travel of the leg would be less than an inch or so.

    I've had lots of experience with 25G and the legs are surprisingly strong. I don't see how the compressive forces on 120' of 25G would be enough to drive the legs down enough to split and be fatal. What am I missing?

Cheers,Steve     K7LXCTOWER TECH -Professional tower services for amateur and commercial installations


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