Stability analysis and performance comparison of large-scale hyperbolic steel cooling towers with different latticed shell systems

The cooling tower is a very important building for the thermal power plant. The large steel cooling tower is proposed to overcome the serious challenges that arise from modern cooling towers being higher, larger, and more complex. In this study, for the large-scale hyperbolic steel cooling tower, seven different latticed shell systems with different grid forms, including five double-layer systems and two single-layer systems, were designed and studied in detail. For different heights, grid sizes, and shell thicknesses, numerous parametric analyses (792 models) of the structures were performed. The static behaviors—including the steel quantity, peak displacement, and peak stress—of the seven structural systems were obtained and compared. The variation laws of the steel quantity and peak displacement with respect to the parameters were presented, and the reasonable range of the parameters for the steel cooling tower with different heights were obtained. The results show that the optimal structural system is different for the steel cooling towers with different heights. Additionally, based on the nonlinear stability analysis, a reasonable strengthening scheme was proposed for the single-layer system with poor stability. The results will be of great help for further research on large steel cooling towers and provide guidance for actual engineering design of the structures.