A Comperative Study on the Behavior of Cooling Towers Under Wind Loads Using Harmonic Solid Ring Finite Elements

Abstract

The present work focuses on a comparative study for the responses of a cooling tower subjected to wind loadings described in accordance with Turkish Standard (TS 498) and Eurocode using harmonic solid ring finite elements. Nonaxisymmetric wind loadings around the circumference make the cooling tower problem three dimensional. However, using harmonic elements reduces the problem to a two dimensional problem by expressing the loading in the form of a Fourier series. Therefore, a finite element program is coded in M atlab incorporating harmonic finite element techniques. The wind analyses of the cooling tower are conducted using 9-noded harmonic solid ring finite element modeling. The harmonic finite element formulations in general terms are presented in the study. The vertical and circumferential distributions of the wind loading effective on the cooling tower according to both standards are compared. The circumferential distributions are expressed using Fourier cosine series and the coefficients indicate that while the wind loading mainly will cause undulating deformations according to Eurocode and beam like deformations according to Turkish Standard (TS 498). M oreover, it is realized that the circumferential distribution of wind pressure influenced the magnitude of displacements and stresses significantly as well as the region under tension along the circumference of the cooling tower.