Abstract:
The distribution of wind loads of super-large cooling tower is very complicated considering interference effect of towers group, especially the extreme value is highly unpredictable. First, according to the world's highest cooling tower (220 m) which is being built with engineering background, wind tunnel tests with 320 test conditions for rigid body were performed under five typical four-tower arrangements in engineering practice, namely, single row, rectangular, rhombic, L-shaped, and oblique L-shaped. Then, the non-Gaussian and non-stationary features of local wind pressure and integral force coefficient of super-large cooling tower were analyzed. Based on the Hermite method and the peak factor method, the distribution rules of the extreme wind pressure and extreme integral force coefficient were discussed. The mapping relationship between the characteristic angle and the local and global aerodynamic extremum was emphatically discussed. On this basis, the mathematic calculation model of the maximum negative pressure extremum and the integral force coefficient extremum of the four-tower group was proposed. Finally, we proposed a uniform equation for fitting the extreme wind loads under the four-tower arrangements, and the accuracy and reliability of the equation were verified. The results show that the maximum negative pressure extremum is less than -3.40 under rectangular, diamond, and L-shaped arrangement. The maximum negative pressure under the rectangular arrangement is the highest, and the strong suction is more likely achieved under the diamond arrangement. The local wind pressure extremum and the integral aerodynamic extremum of the super-large cooling tower can be effectively predicted based on the linear relationship between the characteristic angle and the pulsating wind load of the tower group.