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W. B. Krtzig
Ruhr-Universitt Bochum
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a
RWE Solution AG, Kruppstrasse 5, 45128 Essen, Germany
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Wuppertal, Pauluskichstrasse 7, D-42285 Wuppertal, Germany
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Ruhr-University Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany
d
Kratzig & Partner Engineering Consultants, Buscheyplatz 11-15, D-44801 Bochum, Germany
Received 22 January 2002; received in revised form 17 May 2002; accepted 29 May 2002
Abstract
In the years 1999 to 2001 a new natural draft cooling tower has been built at the RWE power station at Niederaussem, with
200 m elevation the highest cooling tower world-wide. For many reasons, such structures can not be designed merely as enlargement
of smaller ones, on the contrary, it is full of innovative new design elements. The present paper starts with an overview over the
tower and a description of its geometry, followed by an elucidation of the conceptual shape optimization. The structural consequences
of the flue gas inlets through the shell at a height of 49 m are explained as well as the needs for an advanced high performance
concrete for the wall and the fill construction. Further, the design and structural analysis of the tower is described with respect to
the German codified safety concept for these structures. Finally, the necessity of extended durability of this tower is commented,
the durability design concept is explained in detail and illustrated by virtue of a series of figures. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Keywords: Natural draft cooling towers; Reinforced concrete shells; Design for durability
0141-0296/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 4 1 - 0 2 9 6 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 8 2 - 2
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Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
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Fig. 5.
tanbL(rLrT) / (hThC).
The sign of equality herein designates the smallest possible value of bL, at which limit condition two conical
frusta (with straight generatrices) meet at the throat in a
break point of infinite curvature. The maximum angle
bL is limited by the maximum possible inclination of the
form-work system for the shell construction, by experience noticeable below 20. It is an interesting fact that
most of the above mentioned technical aspects improve
for bigger bL, except for the aesthetics of the structure:
A cooling tower generally is perceived as more pleasant
for medium values of bL.
Such exemplary variations of basic shell parameters
can be seen from Figs. 5 and 6. They showas part
results of the shape optimizations [3]the lowest natural
frequencies min f (all for circumferential wave number
n=5) and the lowest elastic buckling safeties min n (a
German codified design condition requires n5) for the
general tower geometry from Fig. 2. Both design parameters generally improve for higher bL. In these predesign studies the shell openings and the thickened wall
parts around both holes have not been considered, in
order to maintain rotational symmetry of the structure.
While examining Fig. 5 one should be aware that an
increase of the lowest natural frequency from a certain
Fig. 6.
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Both hyperbola branches meet at the throat with continuous (zero) tangent. At the lower rim, angle bL as well
as inclination of the column axes measure 17.8. This
cooling tower variant has been pictured in reduced scale
on Fig. 2.
2.3. Inlets for cleaned flue gas
An interesting detail of this new tower is the inlet of
the cleaned flue gas stream into the shell by two tubes
made of glass-fiber reinforced resin, both 6.50 m diameter at an axial height of 49.00 m above ground. As
shown in Fig. 2, this requires two openings of 9.00 m
width in the shell at an axial distance of 19.014.00 m.
In all German operating power plants, the flue gas has
to be cleaned for sulfur- and nitrogen-oxides; in Niederaussem this is executed by chemical washing processes. This cools down the flue gas temperature from
240C to 80C. In order to avoid re-heating of the cleaned flue gas for release over the classical smoke-stack,
the latter is mixed to the cooling tower vapor and thereby
distributed into the environment. Thus, a smoke-stack
is saved, but necessary for the gas inlet are those two
mentioned neighbored openings. They will generally
cause stress concentrations, and weaken the shell wall
to an important extent by reducing the lowest buckling
safety as well as lowest natural frequency of the cooling tower.
In order to keep these perturbations of the shell
response small, the washed flue gas has, up to now, been
guided from the release of the purification plant, here
49.00 m above ground, down to the lower shell rim.
There over the water distribution, they were led into the
interior of the tower, which causes considerable velocity
losses of the flue gas stream. For efficiency reasons, the
pipes in Niederaussem were conducted at same height
straight and with free spansFig. 1into the shell,
requiring both holes in Fig. 2.
Consequently, both tubes carry heavy loads into the
shell, each 2000 kN in vertical and 400 kN in horizontal direction. To counteract all degrading shell effects,
the surroundings of both openings were re-strengthened
by thickening of the shell wall up to 45 cm and by considerable additional reinforcement. Both measures aimed
at a recovery not only of the critical natural frequencies
and buckling safeties of the unperturbed shell, but also
of the original mode shapes. Fig. 8 demonstrates the
result by comparison of the lowest elastic vibration
mode: Frequency as well as vibration mode shape of the
final solution matches nearly perfectly with those ones
of the hole-free shell.
But in spite of this re-strengthening, noticeable
response effects of the shell openings remain in the
tower construction. Strong non-axisymmetric effects
were added to the original non-symmetric soil conditions, leading to additional shell bending. To reduce
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82.03
2.88
6.31
40 400
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G 1.75W,
G 1.75W T;
the instability limit state for the load combination
l(G W),
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circumferential bars is random. The distances of circumferential bars vary from 8.2 to 20.0 cm. The minimum
concrete cover is 3.0 cm. Fig. 11 reports on construction
works at the shell.
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Fig. 13.
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Fig. 14.
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Fig. 18.
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the cold one. Consequently, around point B the secantstiffness has degraded to around 50% of the original one,
caused by greater crack-damage. Although cracking
starts earlier in winter conditions and develops more
intensively than in out-of-service conditions, the failure
load is influenced only marginally because of similar
global crack-patterns in both cases closely before failure.
This recognition can be confirmed by comparison of
both crack-damages in Figs. 16 and 20.
As shell-experts will realize, the wind load factors
l=2.37, respectively 2.31, at failure are rather high, compared with the required partial safety factor for wind
l=1.75 in [18]. This fact is due to design details of the
tower, namely slight circumferential over-reinforcements
in the upper shell allowing for nonlinear stress re-distributions, and the excellently optimized shape of the shell.
We feel obliged to remark, that the wind failure load
factor l3.3 of a Polish tower, evaluated in [19], is
rather unrealistic for unknown reasons (erroneous reference loads, reinforcements, material models).
5. Concluding remarks
The cooling tower of the new power block at the RWE
electricity station Niederaussem presently is the highest
cooling tower in the world at 200 m (see Fig. 21). It
has just been completed and will start servicewith the
complete power blockin mid 2002. This high-tech-
Fig. 21. View of the completed cooling tower shell in January 2000.
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