Influence of adjacent buildings on wind effects on cooling towers

Abstract

In a series of wind tunnel tests, the wind-induced stresses in cooling towers situated in an arrangement of typical power plant buildings, are investigated and compared to the stresses in an isolated tower. Interference factors are developed to quantify the stress increase due to the group effect. It is found that the stresses respond rather non-uniformly to interference, particularly when the distance to adjacent buildings is small and the effect of interference is strong. In order to account for the additional stresses, a global increase may be applied to the wind load, which, however, is only reasonable for moderate interference.