a game-changer in site design

In every telecom roll-out or equipment upgrade, the total weight and wind load imposed on the supporting structure increases. Keeping sites safe and antennas pointing in the right direction is hugely important. The ability to perform quick and accurate structural calculations is crucial.

What could possibly go wrong?

What are the consequences of getting the calculations wrong? Or even worse, not doing them at all?

If you’re too conservative, you will oversize the steelwork, leading to:

• Overstressing the existing structure from unnecessary weight and wind load
• Unnecessary difficulty of installation
• Safety risk increased from handling steelwork that’s too heavy
• Even with heavy and over-strong bracketry, there’s a risk of torsional slip at tubular parent members – antennas can end up pointing in the wrong direction

If you underestimate the loads,

• Wasting money
• Excessive deflection – the antennas point in the wrong direction
• Not safe to climb
• The steelwork can fail – a 100kg antenna falling onto a busy pavement is unlikely to have a happy outcome
• Potentially, forced to cease trading
• Potentially, go directly to jail, do not pass go

Structural calculations for site steelwork are not just nice-to-have. They’re essential if you want to

• Have a safe site
• Have a value-engineered site
• Have great network performance
• Stay in business

Traditional methods of designing telecom steelwork are difficult, hard work, and time-consuming. In particular, accurate wind load calculation is difficult to learn, and tedious because you have to do it in 12 directions. It’s the sort of calculation that’s so complex, if you don’t do it every day, you have to relearn the principles each time.

Often, the temptation is to say, “well, this bracket was OK for an antenna about this size last week, so we’ll use it again here.”

Unfortunately, this is another location at a different altitude and height above the ground. The similarly sized antenna has a different profile coefficient that attracts double the wind load. The brackets aren’t OK.

ESICS (Enhanced Site Innovation and Calculation System) not only does it all for you in a ridiculously short time, it effectively teaches you the design method as you use it. The calculations can actually become fun, with graphical input methods and variable-selectors that calculate and display all possible values at once.

OK, it’s not an addictive video game, but we guarantee it’s a breath of fresh air compared to any method you’ve ever used before.

You don’t have to guess anymore – you can do the sums every time and know (and prove) that you’ve chosen the most appropriate bracket.

Calculations are stored in the app, so you can always refer back to them or add a new calculation for the same site. You can save them as a PDF for inclusion in the site handover pack.

ESICS accurately calculates wind loads in accordance with the Eurocode national annexes for the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and other country codes will be added soon.

What about Significant Orography calculations, to consider the effect of sloping ground, hills and ridges, all with the wind blowing from any direction? Surely the most painful exercise ever to be devised by a design code writer? It’s automatic, of course.

Don’t just take our word for it...

“Recently, RWDI was asked to act as checking engineer for the new ESICS wind loading calculator developed by MAFI Group.

We were pleased by how easy and intuitive it was to use the tool.
Furthermore, we were impressed by how quickly the tool allowed an accurate and comprehensive calculation of the Eurocode wind loads to be undertaken.

Following our review of the ESICS wind loading calculator, we have started to use it internally, as a trusted tool, for our own code-based assessments.”

John Kilpatrick, Practice Area Leader of Wind Loading

RWDI is a world-leading wind engineering, climate and specialist environmental consultancy firm with nearly 50 years’ experience. They have worked on projects all over the world, ranging from solar energy systems, long-span bridges, and low-rise buildings to super-tall towers, including the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

So what’s the cost of this groundbreaking patented software that’s going to save you weeks of work, guarantee safe value-engineered steelwork and keep you in business?

It’s absolutely free.

Don’t miss out – just click the big orange button below!