The Wind Analysis of Reinforced Concrete (RC) Cooling Towers

Abstract

As the industry grows, specific structures such as cooling towers are increasing. The reinforced concrete (RC) cooling towers are vulnerable to earthquakes and wind loadings. Between the earthquake and wind loadings, the cooling towers with lower height should be checked under earthquake, and the cooling towers with more height values should be analyzed and investigated under wind loads. In this paper, a wind analysis was conducted to obtain the displacements and stresses of an RC cooling tower with a circular cross-section. A numerical model of an existing RC cooling tower was constructed to achieve this goal, and the wind loads were applied to it based on a predefined loading template with respect to the central angle. The results showed that the proposed numerical model could precisely identify the wind-related displacements and stresses of the RC cooling tower.