STUDY OF A PROPOSED 200 M HIGH NATURAL DRAFT COOLING-TOWER AT POWER-PLANT FRIMMERSDORF GERMANY/

As part of the new 950 MW power plant Frimmersdorf Black R, the owner RWE Energie AG is planning to build a 200 m natural draught cooling to wer. This height is necessary to ensure the cooling capacity with resp ect to the local situation of the plant in the neighbourhood of a natu re resort. Thus we will reach a new dimension in cooling tower design and construction. The linear extrapolation from 'normal' sizes to a he ight of 200 m is not possible, because the overall dimensions like hei ght and diameter are increased non-proportionally in comparison with s hell thickness and reinforcement mesh. Thus the dynamic behaviour chan ges in an unfavourable way, leading to more bending action in the shel l. This paper shall demonstrate how these enhanced stresses can be met by an optimization of the cooling tower shape and by means of additio nal design and construction criteria. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.