Pole repair and reinforcing system and method for installing the same

A repair system and method for wooden power poles which includes a rigid reinforcing post member having a longitudinal bend formed therein and attachable to the outside surface of a pole to be repaired in overlying relation to the weakened rotted portion thereof, and means for attaching a driving mechanism to the upper portion of the reinforcing post member, and including means for attaching adjacent partially overlapped post members to the upper exposed portion of the pole to be repaired.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
In the past, various repair systems have been developed for the repair of 
rotted sections of wooden poles such as are used for electric transmission 
lines. For the most part; these have included the use of reinforced 
concrete or plastic encased around the rotted portion of the pole adjacent 
to the ground line. Such repair systems are objectionable since they all 
involve on-site mixing of the semiliquid repair material which is 
frequently very inconvenient and also requires excavating a large annular 
hole around the pole to permit installation of the reinforcing encasing 
material around the pole. Such systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 
961,837, issued Jun. 21, 1910 to Briffod; 966,337, issued Aug. 2, 1910 to 
Lamb; 1,598,591, issued Aug. 31, 1926 to Barrett; 4,365,451, issued Dec. 
28, 1982. 
In addition to the use of such concrete or plastic reinforced sleeve 
constructions, a number of inventors have provided outer reinforcing pole 
stub elements which are driven into the ground with the upper portions 
thereof overlapping and attached to the above-ground portions of the pole 
to be reinforced. While these do not require the preparation and insertion 
of the semi-liquid encasing material on site, they all require the use of 
relatively complicated attachment mechanisms which involve either drilling 
holes through the diameter of the pole and the use of bolt and nut 
attachment means or, in the alternative, require banding of the 
reinforcing system to the outside of the exposed portion of the pole 
immediately above the groundline. None of these systems provide the 
simplistic, easily installed solution provided by the present invention. 
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
The present invention includes the use of one or more rigid reinforcing 
bars or elongated reinforcing stub-post members made from generally flat 
elongated rigid plate material having a longitudinal bend along the center 
line thereof to provide the required stiffness and facilitate 
surface-to-surface attachment to the pole and to each other and 
simultaneous attachment to the surface of the pole to be repaired. The 
longitudinal bend provides flat attachment wing portions on both sides 
thereof, the bend angle being a value that associates with a circumscribed 
polygon (such as 120 degrees for a six-sided polygon) to permit the 
lateral wing portions to lay flat against each other and lay tangent to 
the pole surface wherein and pole diameters that occur on the job may be 
properly fitted. The bars are securely anchored to the pole by lag screws 
which penetrate radially into the pole through the wing portions and are 
drilled on the job to simultaneously join adjacent bars into a 
circumferential reinforcing unit. The strength of each unit thus formed 
becomes significantly greater than the sum of the separate members due to 
their attachment together to amplify the composite strength of the 
joined-together members by producing a greater section modulus.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
Each member is constructed of a flat, elongated piece of rigid material, 
such as 1/4" galvanized steel plate stock, bent along the longitudinal 
center line thereof to form a reinforcing post element 10. 
The flat plate stock rigid material from which the reinforcing post members 
10 are constructed may be also a rigid plastic material. Each post member 
10 is beveled at the bottom, as shown at 10a, to facilitate driving the 
post into the ground adjacent and alongside the outer surface of the power 
pole to be reinforced. The upper end portion of each post member 10 is 
provided with an attachment hole 10b for connection with a driving member 
such as hydraulic cylinder 12, which has a clevis 13 and attachment pin 
13a at the bottom thereof, and a clevis 14 and anchoring pin 14a are 
provided at the top thereof. An mounting bracket 16, is provided for 
anchoring of the top of the cylinder to the power pole P to be reinforced. 
Suitable means for anchoring the bracket 16 to the pole are provided, such 
as the circumferential attachment chain 17 or nylon belt (not shown) which 
passes around the pole and the outside of the bracket 16 and which is 
attached by a loop element 18 fixed to the outside. Bracket 16 includes a 
tongue element 16a to which the clevis 14 and pin 14a are connected. A 
toothed anchoring bracket 16b is provided for biting into the wooden pole 
P is illustrated. The bracket 16 has an anchoring flange 16c to facilitate 
attachment of the toothed bracket 16b as by the bolts 16d. The offset of 
the attachment pin 14a fulcrums the teeth of bracket 16b into penetrating 
the wood of pole to anchor the upper end of the driving cylinder 12. 
The hydraulic cylinder 12 has a pair of hydraulic conduit-connecting 
nipples 12a and 12b for attachment to a hydraulic pump system (not shown) 
for actuating the piston within the cylinder and driving the reinforcing 
post 10 downwardly into the ground alongside the pole P to be repaired. 
After the post member 10 has been driven into the ground adjacent to the 
lower surface portion of the pole P, additional posts 10 may also be 
driven in overlapping relationship to the adjacent reinforcing posts 
around the pole, as shown in FIG. 3. When sufficient reinforcing post 
members 10 are in place in the prescribed overlapped relationship, as 
shown in FIG. 3, holes 10c are drilled through the overlapped portions of 
the posts to permit attachment lag screws 20 to be screwed through the 
reinforcing post elements into the pole. The lag screws 20 form common 
attachment means between adjacent overlapping post elements, as well as 
securely anchoring the post elements 10 to the pole to be repaired.