Seismic and Thermal Response of Natural Draft Cooling Tower Using Different Supporting Columns

Abstract

A Natural draft cooling tower is an enclosed device where hot water gets cooledunder direct contact with air. This paper presents the study of natural draft cooling tower using different supporting columns. The Natural draft Cooling tower (NDCT) considered for present study is of height 150m and finite element analysis study has been conducted on the NDCT model which was made using ANSYS 19.2 software.The analysis conducted were modal analysis, Response spectrum analysis and thermal analysis on NDCT with different shape of columns like I, V and Xfor seismic Zone-IV and Zone-IV. From the results of analysis conducted, we concluded that either V-Shape or X-shape columnsare more suitable for zones based on comparative parameters like Displacement, first principal stress, and base reactions. Thermal stress increases with increase temperature and more stress develop at junction of shell and columns, more stress is observed at I- shape column and least stress is in observed at X-shape column.