Wind tunnel test and finite element analysis of a hyperbolic cooling tower

A small-scale model for a hyperbolic cooling tower has been developed and tested in the boundary layer wind tunnel laboratory at the University of Western Ontario. The spatial and time history variation for the wind pressure along the surface of the shell is predicted by the wind tunnel test. A detailed finite element model for the full-scale tower was then created. The finite element model is based on a degenerated shell element developed in …