By Sharpe Smith, Contributing Editor
Recently, more attention has been paid to the interaction between antenna mounts and towers to avoid failures. To ensure that today’s larger, heavier antenna mounts and antennas remain secured to a monopole, Valmont Site Pro 1 has redesigned the connection between the mount and the tower, known as a ring mount.
Valmont Site Pro 1’s new ring mount design took center stage at the NATE Emerging Technologies Expo.
At the NATE Emerging Technologies Expo, held in Valley, Neb., the manufacturer’s representatives said the new ring mount provides a 97 percent increase in pole capacity. Regarding shear load, the new design will handle triple the weight. It is rated at 9,000 pounds, compared with the previous design, which was rated at 3,000 pounds.
Valmont Site Pro 1’s Flex Ring Mount, which provides the mount-to-tower connection for monopoles, has two models: the Flex SD, which is an upgraded version for the LWRM and the UQB4, and the Flex HD mount, which is an upgraded version of the RM3 and RM4. The product is set for market release, with ongoing physical testing.
According to Luke Ferguson, applications engineering manager at Valmont Industries, pivot points were included in the design to maintain direct contact over a larger area between the ring mount and the monopole. Additionally, the pivot points ensure that the shape of the ring mount does not induce additional stress into the threaded rods.
“The goal is to better spread out the loading on the monopole,” said Ferguson. “We added pivot points with the threaded rods to ensure that they’re always going to be in pure tension, and the shape of the ring mount is not going to induce additional stress into that threaded rod.”
The session at the NATE conference covered different methods for installing ring mounts on telecom towers, emphasizing the need to avoid pole damage.
“It’s important to know that torque specs are site-specific to that pole,” said Joe Trimble, senior design engineer at Valmont Industries. “So it’s going to depend on the pole’s diameter, the thickness of the pole, the material, and the grade of the pole.”
Mitigating monopole stress
Last Thursday, Site Pro 1 presented an informative webinar: Mitigating Monopole Stress with Next Generation Technology. Panelists included Joe Trimble, Luke Ferguson, and Dale Heath, team lead, and Ane Coetzee, application sales engineer.
The webinar dove into solutions for managing these challenges where attendees were able to:
- Understand the effects of increased equipment loads on monopole structures
- Learn about the latest innovations in mount design that help alleviate structural stress
- Get an in-depth look at their patent-pending VersaFlex™ Clamp Ring technology, featuring articulating contacts that distribute loads more effectively to minimize damage
If you missed it, it’s available here: https://www.sitepro1.com/connection – under webinars. Just request access, and you’ll be pleased with the enlightening information.