Buckling safety of cooling tower shells. Evaluation of some important code provisions

Power generation is one of the thrust areas for priority investment in developing countries. Cooling towers have become essential structures in many of the super thermal and nuclear power plants. Much technology transfer is taking place at an international level in the areas of thermal and structural design of natural draught cooling towers in concrete. One of the more controversial topics in such technology transfer is buckling safety of the hyperboloidal cooling tower shell. This paper presents a comparative evaluation of the recommendations, in this area, of some of the important national and international codes of practice, by way of case studies on five different cooling towers.