A Set of Shell Finite Elements for Dynamic Analysis of Cooling Towers

摘要

A set of shell finite elements is adopted, modified, or extended to study the dynamic responses of complex, thin shell structures and column-supported cooling towers due to earthquake excitation and wind loads. The elements are formulated to achieve optimum finite element modeling of the column-supported cooling towers according to the distributions of dominating bending and membrane stresses, and to model the vulnerable shell column region using discrete column elements and quadrilateral shell elements. Examples are provided to evaluate a single type, combined types, and the whole set of elements. The whole set of elements is used to determine the first three eccentric natural frequencies of a column-supported cooling tower. The mean stresses and displacements in a fixed base cooling tower are determined and the results are found to be in excellent agreement with the known alternative solutions.