Title: Soil-structure interaction using equivalent support stiffness in response of cooling towers

Authors: Sachin R. Kulkarni

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering, K.L.S. Gogte Institute of Technology (Autonomous), Belagavi, Karnataka 590006, India; Affiliated to: Visvesvaraya Technological University VTU, India

Abstract: The idealisation of support boundary conditions for the hyperbolic shape cooling tower shell has significant influence on static and dynamic response of the shell. The sensitivity of the support boundary conditions on the static response of the cooling towers is investigated. Studies on soil-structure interaction (SSI) on static response of cooling tower shell available in the literature are largely focussed on meridional and hoop forces for a particular value of soil stiffness under consideration. The current study focuses on effect of SSI on static response of hyperbolic cooling tower shell for the practical range of soil stiffness values. It is observed that with the decrease in soil stiffness, the vertical displacement of tower shell increases with no significant change in meridional and hoop forces, indicating rigid body displacement rather than deformation. The applicability of equivalent support stiffness concept developed by the authors earlier is investigated to evaluate the static response of the shell on column supports including SSI. The study also includes the redistribution of membrane forces and column forces due to loss of column support at a location.

Keywords: boundary condition; soil-structure interaction; SSI; static response; equivalent support stiffness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTRUCTE.2024.139769

International Journal of Structural Engineering, 2024 Vol.14 No.3, pp.233 - 251

Received: 07 Jun 2023
Accepted: 26 Nov 2023
Published online: 05 Jul 2024 *

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