Seismic behavior of flexible conductors connecting substation equipment-part II: shake table tests

Due to failures of interconnected equipment in recent earthquakes, it is suspected that the seismic interaction of the flexible conductors with the equipment during a strong ground motion could cause additional unpredicted forces, resulting in damage or collapse of the equipment they interconnect. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the dynamic behavior of flexible conductors by performing several shake table tests on a class of flexible conductors and the relevant 500-kV interconnected equipment used in substations throughout the province of British Columbia in Canada. The test specimen consisted of large scale models of the equipment items and the actual size flexible conductors. The shake table input records were synthetic earthquakes generated to fit an IEEE prescribed response spectrum. This investigation showed that the dynamic effect of flexible conductors must be considered when evaluating the seismic capacity of interconnected equipment.