Considerations concerning buckling concepts of RC cooling towers regarding material nonlinearities

摘要

In this paper we will first give a short introduction to stability phenomena and stability theory. Further we will discuss a linear buckling safety concept according to DIN 1045 (DIN 1045 1988) and VGB-BTR (VGB-BTR 1997). In this context we will present a practical procedure for determining the lower bound of the limit load of a shell structure with the concept of reduced membrane buckling. Also we will give a application of this method to find the ideal wall thickness distribution of a cooling tower shell in the first design studies. Special intention is given to the material nonlinearities with respect to buckling. The phenomena of perfect and imperfect cooling tower shells are analyzed and the nonlinear buckling behavior will be discussed for ideal and imperfect cooling tower shells.