WIND LOADS ON MULTI NATURAL DRAFT COOLING TOWERS IN A POWER PLANT

Natural draft cooling tower is a high-rise thinshell structure. The displacement in the top of the cooling tower can betens of centimeters under wind loads, several times of the wallthickness. Cooling tower is very sensitive to wind loads, especially inmulti-towers conditions, where the wind velocity, wind pressure distribution andairflow among towers are quite complex. On the basis of the experimentresults on irregular multi-towers, this paper put forward some proposalsabout determiningwind loads of natural draft cooling tower in multi- towers conditions.