• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.891-908
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• 2015

For a systematic study on wind-induced vibration characteristics of large hyperbolic cooling towers with different feature sizes, the pressure measurement tests are finished on the rigid body models of three representative cooling towers with the height of 155 m, 177 m and 215 m respectively. Combining the refined frequency-domain algorithm of wind-induced responses, the wind-induced average response, resonant response, background response, coupling response and wind vibration coefficients of large cooling towers with different feature sizes are obtained. Based on the calculating results, the parametric analysis on wind-induced vibration of cooling towers is carried out, e.g. the feature sizes, damping ratio and the interference effect of surrounding buildings. The discussion shows that the increase of feature sizes makes wind-induced average response and fluctuating response larger correspondingly, and the proportion of resonant response also gradually increased, but it has little effect on the wind vibration coefficient. The increase of damping ratio makes resonant response and the wind vibration coefficient decreases obviously, which brings about no effect on average response and background response. The interference effect of surrounding buildings makes the fluctuating response and wind vibration coefficient increased significantly, furthermore, the increase ranges of resonant response is greater than background response.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.443-465
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• 2014

Hyperbolic thin-shell cooling towers have complicated vibration modes, and are very sensitive to the effects of group towers and wind-induced vibrations. Traditional aero-elastic models of cooling towers are usually designed based on the method of stiffness simulation by continuous medium thin shell materials. However, the method has some shortages in actual engineering applications, so the so-called "equivalent beam-net design method" of aero-elastic models of cooling towers is proposed in the paper and an aero-elastic model with a proportion of 1: 200 based on the method above with integrated pressure measurements and vibration measurements has been designed and carried out in TJ-3 wind tunnel of Tongji university. According to the wind tunnel test, this paper discusses the impacts of self-excited force effect on the surface wind pressure of a large-scale cooling tower and the results show that the impact of self-excited force on the distribution characteristics of average surface wind pressure is very small, but the impact on the form of distribution and numerical value of fluctuating wind pressure is relatively large. Combing with the Complete Quadratic Combination method (hereafter referred to as CQC method), the paper further studies the numerical sizes and distribution characteristics of background components, resonant components, cross-term components and total fluctuating wind-induced vibration responses of some typical nodes which indicate that the resonance response is dominant in the fluctuating wind-induced vibration response and cross-term components are not negligible for wind-induced vibration responses of super-large cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2019

Internal ring beams are primary components of new ring-stiffened cooling towers. In this study, numerical simulation of the internal flow field of a cooling tower with three ring beams under wind-thermal coupling effect is performed. The studied cooling tower is a 220-m super-large hyperbolic indirect natural draft cooling tower that is under construction in China and will be the World's highest cooling tower, the influence of peripheral radiators in operating cooling tower is also considered. Based on the simulation, the three-dimensional effect and distribution pattern of the wind loads on inner surface of the cooling tower is summarized, the average wind pressure distributions on the inner surface before and after the addition of the ring beams are analyzed, and the influence pattern of ring beams on the internal pressure coefficient value is derived. The action mechanisms behind the air flows inside the tower are compared. In addition, the effects of internal ring beams on temperature field characteristics, turbulence kinetic energy distribution, and wind resistance are analyzed. Finally, the internal pressure coefficients are suggested for ring-stiffened cooling towers under wind-thermal coupling effect. The study shows that the influence of internal stiffening ring beams on the internal pressure and flow of cooling towers should not be ignored, and the wind-thermal coupling effect should also be considered in the numerical simulation of cooling tower flow fields. The primary conclusions presented in this paper offer references for determining the internal suction of such ring-stiffened cooling towers.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.235-246
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• 2019

Wind loading is one of important loadings that should be considered in the design of large hyperbolic natural-draught cooling towers. Both external and internal surfaces of cooling tower are under the action of wind loading for cooling circulating water. In the previous studies, the wind loads on the external surface attracted concernedly attention, while the study on the internal surface was relatively ware. In the present study, the wind pressure on the internal surface of a 220 m high cooling tower is measured through wind tunnel testing, and the effect of ventilation rate of the packing layer on internal pressure is a major concern. The characteristics of internal wind pressure distribution and its effect on wind-induced responses calculated by finite element method are investigated. The results indicate that the wind loading on internal surface of the cooling tower behaves remarkable three-dimensional effect, and the pressure coefficient varies along both of height and circumferential directions. The non-uniformity is particularly strong during the construction stage. Analysis results of the effect of internal pressure on wind-induced responses show that the size and distribution characteristics of internal pressure will have some influence on wind-induced response, however, the outer pressure plays a dominant role in the wind-induced response of cooling tower, and the contribution of internal pressure to the response is small.