• Wind and Structures
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.727-753
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• 2015

A double-skinned composite tubular (DSCT) wind power tower was suggested and automatic section design software was developed. The developed software adopted the nonlinear material model and the nonlinear column model. If the outer diameter, material properties and design capacities of a DSCT wind power tower are given, the developed software performs axial force-bending moment interaction analyses for hundreds of sections of the tower and suggests ten optimized cross-sectional designs. In this study, 80 sections of DSCT wind power towers were designed for 3.6 MW and 5.0 MW turbines. Moreover, the performances of the 80 designed sections were analyzed with and without considerations of large displacement effect. In designing and analyzing them, the material nonlinearity and the confining effect of concrete were considered. The comparison of the analysis results showed the moment capacity loss of the wind power tower by the mass of the turbine is significant and the large displacement effect should be considered for the safe design of the wind power tower.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.617-633
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• 2016

In this paper, the analysis of hyperbolic cooling tower on elastic subsoil exposed to unsymmetrical wind loading is presented. Modified Vlasov foundation model is used to determine the soil parameters as a function of vertical deformation profile within subsoil. The iterative parameter updating procedure involves the use of Open Application Programming Interface (OAPI) feature of SAP2000 to provide two way data flow during execution. A computing tool coded in MATLAB employing OAPI is used to perform the analysis of hyperbolic cooling tower with supporting columns over a hollow annular raft founded on elastic subsoil. The analysis of such complex soil-structure system is investigated under self-weight and unsymmetrical wind load. The response of the cooling tower on elastic subsoil is compared with that of a tower that its supporting raft foundation is treated as fixed at the base. The results show that the effect of subsoil on the behavior of cooling tower is considerable at the top and bottom of the wall as well as supporting columns and raft foundation. The application of a full-size cooling tower has demonstrated that the procedure is simple, fast and can easily be implemented in practice.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.319-332
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• 2019

Structural health monitoring (SHM) is of great importance to super high-rise buildings. The Shanghai Tower is currently the tallest building in China, and a complete SHM system was simultaneously constructed at the beginning of the construction of the tower. Due to the variety of sensor types and the large number of measurement points in the SHM system, an online automatic structural health assessment method with few computations and no manual intervention is needed. This paper introduces a structural health assessment method for the Shanghai Tower that uses the coefficients of an autoregressive (AR) time series model as structural state indicators. An analysis of collected data indicates that the coefficients of the AR model are affected by environmental factors, and the principal component analysis method is used to remove the influence of environmental factors. Finally, the control chart method is used to track the changes in structural state indicators, and a plan for online automatic structure health state evaluation is proposed. This method is applied to long-term acceleration and inclination data from the Shanghai Tower and successfully identifies the changes in the structural state. Overall, the structural state indicators of the Shanghai Tower are stable, and the structure is in a healthy state.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.513-522
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• 2019

A long-span transmission tower-line system is indispensable for long-distance electricity transmission across a large river or valley; hence, the failure of this system, especially the collapse of the supporting towers, has serious impacts on power grids. To ensure the safety and reliability of transmission systems, this study experimentally and numerically investigates the collapse failure of a 220 kV long-span transmission tower-line system subjected to severe earthquakes. A 1:20 scale model of a transmission tower-line system is constructed in this research, and shaking table tests are carried out. Furthermore, numerical studies are conducted in ABAQUS by using the Tian-Ma-Qu material model, the results of which are compared with the experimental findings. Good agreement is found between the experimental and numerical results, showing that the numerical simulation based on the Tian-Ma-Qu material model is able to predict the weak points and collapse process of the long-span transmission tower-line system. The failure of diagonal members at weak points constitutes the collapse-inducing factor, and the ultimate capacity and weakest segment vary with different seismic wave excitations. This research can further enrich the database for the seismic performance of long-span transmission tower-line systems.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.335-353
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• 2022

The current work numerically investigates the transient force and dynamic response of an overhead transmission tower-line structure caused by the passage of a high-speed train (HST). Taking the CRH2C HST and an overhead transmission tower-line structure as the research objects, both an HST-transmission line fluid numerical model and a transmission tower-line structure finite element model are established and validated through comparison with experimental and theoretical data. The transient force and typical dynamic response of the overhead transmission tower-line structure due to HST-induced wind are analyzed. The results show that when the train passes through the overhead transmission tower-line structure, the extreme force on the transmission line is related to the train speed with a significant quadratic function relationship. Once the relative distance from the track is more than 15 m, the train-induced force is small enough to be ignored. The extreme value of the mid-span dynamic response of the transmission line is related to the train speed and span length with a significant linear functional relationship.

• Journal of Korean Association for Spatial Structures
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.97-104
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• 2012

In the design procedure of the cooling tower the form-finding of the shell is the most important process, because the shape of the shell determines the sensitivity of dynamic behaviour of the whole tower against wind excitation. In engineering practice, geometric parameters of the shell are generally determined based on natural frequency analysis. 32 cooling tower shell geometries were selected through variation of the geometric parameters of an existing cooling tower shell. They were evaluated based on the first natural frequency. From the result three representative cooling towers are selected for the analysis of the structural behaviour by means of linear FE-method. As a result, a hyperbolic rotational shell with the small radius overall will yield the shell geometry with a higher first natural frequency and thus a wind-insensitive structure.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.247-270
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• 2019

Wind-resistant design of existing cooling tower structures overlooks the impacts of rainfall. However, rainstorm will influence aerodynamic force on the tower surface directly. Under this circumstance, the structural response of the super-large cooling tower (SLCT) will become more complicated, and then the stability and safety of SLCT will receive significant impact. In this paper, surrounding wind fields of the world highest (210 m) cooling tower in Northwest China underthree typical wind velocities were simulated based on the wind-rain two-way coupling algorithm. Next, wind-rain coupling synchronous iteration calculations were conducted under 9 different wind speed-rainfall intensity combinations by adding the discrete phase model (DPM). On this basis, the influencing laws of different wind speed-rainfall intensity combinations on wind-driving rain, adhesive force of rain drops and rain pressure coefficients were discussed. The acting mechanisms of speed line, turbulence energy strength as well as running speed and trajectory of rain drops on structural surface in the wind-rain coupling field were disclosed. Moreover, the fitting formula of wind-rain coupling equivalent pressure coefficient of the cooling tower was proposed. A systematic contrast analysis on its 3D distribution pattern was carried out. Finally, coupling model of SLCT under different working conditions was constructed by combining the finite element method. Structural response, buckling stability and local stability of SLCT under different wind velocities and wind speed-rainfall intensity combinations were compared and analyzed. Major research conclusions can provide references to determine loads of similar SLCT accurately under extremely complicated working conditions.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.85-94
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• 2018

The paper focuses on the seismic responses of a hyperbolic cooling tower resting on soil foundation represented by the three-parameter Vlasov elastic soil model. The three-parameter soil model eliminates the necessity of field testing to determine soil parameters such as reaction modulus and shear parameter. These parameters are calculated using an iterative procedure depending on the soil surface vertical deformation profile in the model. The soil and tower system are modeled in SAP2000 structural analysis program using a computing tool coded in MATLAB. The tool provides a two-way data transfer between SAP2000 and MATLAB with the help of Open Application Programming Interface (OAPI) feature of SAP2000. The response spectrum analyses of the tower system with circular V-shaped supporting columns and annular raft foundation on elastic soil are conducted thanks to the coded tool. The shell and column forces and displacements are presented for different soil conditions and fixed raft base condition to investigate the effects of soil-structure interaction. Numerical results indicate that the flexibility of soil foundation leads to an increase in displacements but a decrease in shell membrane and column forces. Therefore, it can be stated that the consideration of soil-structure interaction in the seismic response analysis of the cooling tower system provides an economical design process.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.10 no.4_5
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• pp.313-329
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• 2012

A challenging issue in design and implementation of an effective structural health monitoring (SHM) system is to determine where a number of sensors are properly installed. In this paper, research on the optimal sensor placement (OSP) is carried out on the Canton Tower (formerly named Guangzhou New Television Tower) of 610 m high. To avoid the intensive computationally-demanding problem caused by tens of thousands of degrees of freedom (DOFs) involved in the dynamic analysis, the three dimension finite element (FE) model of the Canton Tower is first simplified to a system with less DOFs. Considering that the sensors can be physically arranged only in the translational DOFs of the structure, but not in the rotational DOFs, a new method of taking the horizontal DOF as the master DOF and rotational DOF as the slave DOF, and reducing the slave DOF by model reduction is proposed. The reduced model is obtained by IIRS method and compared with the models reduced by Guyan, Kuhar, and IRS methods. Finally, the OSP of the Canton Tower is obtained by a kind of dual-structure coding based generalized genetic algorithm (GGA).

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.219-226
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• 2014

A bus duct system for wind tower is introduced. A marine cable has been widely used in wind tower or various offshore structures. However, as the electric load capacity is increases, large number of cable lines must be used to cover the huge amount of electric capacities. Therefore, the installation of the cable lines becomes very difficult due to the heavy weight and volume of the cables. On the other hand, by using a single bus duct system line, the power capacity amount of 16 cables can be delivered with significantly compacted form. However, unlike flexible cables, the bus duct is relatively stiff which could generate the resonance phenomenon in the operating condition of the wind tower. In this study, the vibration characteristics of the bus duct are investigated and its long-term reliability during the life time of the wind tower is verified.