PRINCIPLES OF TAKING VALUES OF WIND-INDUCED INTERFERENCE FACTORS FOR A GROUP OF LARGE-SCALE COOLING TOWERS

In order to establish preliminary principles on how to take values of wind-induced interference factors for a group of cooling towers, one electric power plant project including five towers with same heights (150 meters high) has been taken as an example. Wind pressure distributions on the group of cooling towers were measured, as well as those on one single tower as the reference case, through rigid model wind tunnel experiments. Finite element analysis on the cooling tower structures was conducted under experimental wind loads for each wind direction in the wind tunnel experiments, including both the single tower and each tower in the group tower cases. For the interference factors based on wind loads, unfavorable local pressure coefficients and unfavorable total drag forces among all wind directions were determined for both the single tower case and the group tower cases, respectively. For the values based on wind-induced responses, unfavorable values for lateral displacements, principal tensile and compression stresses, meridional tensile and compression stresses and axial forces in herringbone columns were picked up, and the most unfavorable values for each calculation case were determined among all wind directions. Finally, the theoretical total amount of reinforcement was calculated and set as the main principle for the interference factors, and the applicability of previous two sets of interference factors were discussed.