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Structural Engineering and Mechanics
  Volume 22, Number 2, January30 2006 , pages 223-240
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/sem.2006.22.2.223
 


Ultimate behavior of reinforced concrete cooling tower: Evaluation and comparison of design guidelines
Hyuk-Chun Noh and Chang-Koon Choi

 
Abstract
    Taking into account the geometrical and material nonlinearities, an ultimate behavior of reinforced concrete cooling tower shell in hyperbolic configuration is presented. The design wind pressures suggested in the guidelines of the US (ACI) and Germany (VGB), with or without the effect of internal suction, are employed in the analysis to examine the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of each design wind pressure. The geometrical nonlinearity is incorporated by the Green-Lagrange strain tensor. The nonlinear features of concrete, such as the nonlinear stress-strain relation in compression, the tensile cracking with the smeared crack model, an effect of tension stiffening, are taken into account. The biaxial stress state in concrete is represented by an improved work-hardening plasticity model. From the perspective of quality of wind pressures, the two guidelines are determined as highly correlated each other. Through the extensive analysis on the Niederaussem cooling tower in Germany, not only the ultimate load is determined but also the mechanism of failure, distribution of cracks, damage processes, stress redistributions, and mean crack width are examined.
 
Key Words
    reinforced concrete cooling tower; nonlinearity; ultimate load; design guidelines; damage index.
 
Address
Hyuk-Chun Noh; Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, New York 10027, USA
Chang-Koon Choi; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon 305-701, Korea
 

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