Stability performance and wind tunnel test of steel hyperbolic cooling tower considering skinned effect

With the development of industry, cooling towers play a very important role in thermal power generation, and steel cooling towers are being used more widely. The surface of cooling towers is covered with profiled panels, and the skinned effect on the mechanical performance and stability of the structure should be considered. At present, most studies on steel cooling towers have not considered the skinned effect. In steel cooling towers, the skin panels are usually connected to members by self-tapping screws., the shearing test of self-tapping screw connection is carried out considering different screw diameters and plate thicknesses to obtain the shear stiffness of the screws. Then, three FE models of steel hyperbolic cooling towers are established and compared: in Mode-1, the skin panel is not considered; in Model-2, the panel and the member node are rigidly connected; in Model-3, the spring elements are established to simulate the shearing and tension stiffness of self -tapping screws connecting skin panel and members. Based on the finest Model-3, a parametric analysis is done to investigate the effect of the skinned effect on the overall structural stability. Considering different landform types and the roughness of the inner and outer surfaces, a total of 18 measurement conditions are tested in the wind tunnel to study the outer and internal wind pressure coefficients. Furthermore, based on the wind tunnel test, the wind-induced response analysis of steel hyperbolic cooling towers is performed.