LATTICED MAST STRUCTURES

Canadian warships are equipped with free-standing latticed masts, and the research reported here has been aimed at reducing the weight and p rofile area of these structures and increasing their ability to absorb energy. From initial studies of 11 latticed configurations, a control configuration was selected and an innovative one was compared with it , with encouraging results. This innovation is considered to be applic able not only to warship masts, but also to other latticed structures such as transmission towers, latticed beam-columns, and freestanding a nd guyed masts. Although this research contains an experimental compon ent, no experiments have been conducted on the innovative configuratio n. Such experiments constitute additional research that is needed.