H.A. Mang, L. Cedolin:
"Cooling Tower Analysis by a Finite Element Technique Based on a Modified Hamilton Principle";
Meccanica, 1 (1979), 208 - 224.
The present paper consists of a theoretical and a numerical part. The purpose of the former is the derivation of total as well as incremental equations of motion for general nonlinear dynamic analysis of thin shells by the Finite Element Method. A modification of Hamilton's principle, permitting consideration of nonconservative internal and external forces, serves as the vehicle to meet this goal. Special features of the derivation are (a) consideration of follower loads acting normally to the shell throughout the deformation history and (b) the use of Lagrangian multipliers in order to satisfy originally relaxed interelement continuity conditions.In the numerical part of this paper the theoretical concept is applied to the analysis of cooling-tower shells. The numerical investigation covers solution of the quasistatic stress problem and determination of quasistatic buckling wind pressures for a cooling tower shell subjected to wind load as well as earthquake response analysis for another one. A novel scheme for static condensation of massless degrees of freedom is found to permit an effective solution of the eigenproblem, required as a prerequisite to obtain the earth-quake response.
Keywords: cooling tower