Rouse designs power line pole more resistant to collapse

CCEE Senior Lecturer Matt Rouse stands beside Casey Faber (MSCE’10). They have designed a new kind of power pole that is more reliable and cost-effective than the current generation of transmission poles.

There are approximately 185 million power transmission poles in North America, and more than two million need to be replaced each year.

An Iowa State University professor and a former Iowa State University graduate student have designed what they believe is a better pole that will cost less to install, help prevent power failures after storms, and allow for repair, rather than costly replacement.

Jon “Matt” Rouse, senior lecturer in civil, construction and environmental engineering at Iowa State, and Casey Faber, currently a project engineer with WHKS & Co. of Ames, developed their design to make transmission poles less susceptible to cascading collapse after a tornado, ice storm, hurricane, earthquake or act of terrorism.