Field Measurement and Numerical Study of External Wind Pressure of Ribbed Cooling Tower

The hyperbolic thin-shell cooling tower is a typical wind-sensitive structure. The full-size measurement is the most direct and important way to study the distribution of wind pressure on the surface of the cooling tower. Due to the limitations of engineering conditions and meteorological conditions, the field measured data are relatively lacking, and the field test data of ribbed cooling towers are less. In order to analyze the wind pressure distribution on the surface of the cooling tower, we chose a ribbed cooling tower in Toksun County, Xinjiang, China, where there are strong winds all year round, and field measurements were carried out to understand the wind load characteristics of the tower under the perennial dominant wind direction and the maximum wind direction. It was found that the absolute value of the negative pressure on the leeward side was larger than that in the code and the fluctuating wind pressure coefficient fluctuates greatly when the field measured wind speed was greater than 10m/s (15 meters above the ground). For circular section cooling tower, the Reynolds number (Re) has great influence on wind pressure. With the increase of Re, the absolute value of the average negative pressure of the tail wind pressure coefficient increases, which should be paid attention to in design. The regression curves of the average wind pressure coefficients measured on site under several typical working conditions are given by using the least square method, and its form is consistent with the standard (but the coefficients are different). In addition, Fluent software was used to calculate the external wind pressure of the cooling tower, and the field measured results were compared with the Chinese code, German code and numerical calculation, and the results were consistent.