Safety assessment model for transmission tower structures based on multi-source information fusion method

A safety assessment model for transmission tower structure was developed with multiple factors being considered. According to the numerical simulation results which were calculated by the finite element method, the proposed model adopted the information entropy and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process to determine the index weights and grade weights, respectively. The variable weight of each index was calculated by the relative entropy method for all the load cases. By introducing the variable weight that integrated multiple factors, the basic probability assignment (BPA) was extended. The relation between the safety grade and index was determined by Cauchy distribution, and the Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory was used to combinate the two independent pieces of evidence to evaluate the probability of the final safety grade for transmission tower structure. Take a transmission tower structure as an example, the proposed safety assessment model was used to evaluate the safety grade. The assessment results showed that the proposed model can reasonably evaluate the safety grade with multiple dynamic factors being considered.