CONCRETE CHIMNEY ANALYSIS AND DESIGN: FE MODELS AND ANSYS-BASED CAD Arkady A. Livshits Civil Engineering Department The Israel Electric Corp. Ltd. Haifa, Israel ABSTRACT Different BEAM and SHELL finite element models of rmulti-liners concrete chimneys are discussed. Modal characteristics of the chimney are used for models comparison. Fundamental modes of vibration are illustrated by ANSYS output, Specific details of the design procedure in accordance with American and Israeli Standards are described. ANSYS-based CCAD using APDL capabilities is presented, SHELL FE model of the chimney foundation is considered. Advanced combined FE models are developed. Numerical results are presented in table form, INTRODUCTION Strong environmental protection requirements have lead in the last decades to important technological innovations in modem power industry. First and foremost these ‘modifications concem the flue gas purifleation system and hhenee chimneys. High (250...300 m) multiliners eonerete chimneys are complex engineering structures, The typical chimney consists of = multctapered concrete shell (outer diameter of about 15...35 m) with various wall thickness; = to or more steel liners with special alloy cladding (diameter of about 6...8 m, length of about 200...250 ‘m), each liner is hung up at the top of the chimney by steel girders and horizontally supported at the bottom end by guides; = conerete ring foundation plate with rectangular eross- seetion about 6x3 m; = conerete piles (diameter is 1.5 m, length is about 40 50 m) arranged in two concentric citcles (28 ... 32 piles per cite), = service stet platforms, lif, ladders and other equipment. For proper and safe design the chimney must be analysed on the next loads: ‘+ self-weight of structures; ‘+ along-wind loa: ‘+ across-wind load leading to resonance at the I-st or 2-nd natural frequency ‘© earthquake response spectrum load; ‘© quasi-static earthquake load Israeli Standard for chimney design does not exist, therefore in the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) the relevant Standard ACI 307 has been adopted as basic design document. Inthe part covering material properties this standard refers to ‘American Code ACI 318, Concrete types, material tests system and conerete properties, like modulus of elasticity, according to ACI 318 differ fundamentally from the same characteristics ‘which have been stated in Israeli Conerete Code IS 466, In IEC design practice it has been decided to take into consideration the value of modulus of elasticity according to ACI 318 cconerete type, which has the same actual strength as 1S 466 conerete type indicated on desien drawings, Environmental loads used in design have to comply with national standards, which adequately depict specifi local features. Therefore the mean hourly design wind speed at different heights above ground is caleulated in accordance with the procedure of Israeli Standard IS 414 Israel isa strong earthquake area. Hence in dynamic response spectrum analysis method two different spectrums have been used. First of them is a site-specific response spectrum presented in Israeli Standard 1S 413, The second one is ‘obtained from the normalized horizontal elastic seismic response spectrum ACI 307 by scaling down by the effective peak ground acceleration given in IS 413. Series of static and dynamic analyses must be done during design process. ANSYS provides an efficient tool to attain this MODAL ANALYSIS Main features of the chimney are the natural frequencies of the complex system “shell-iners”. Modal characteristics of the chimney are intensively used to estimate the fuctuats ‘component of the along-wind load, the across-wind response in the first and second modes and, obviously, earthquake loads. Thus, the modes set has been used for suitable FE ‘model selection Tn general, the beam model as lower-mode-frequency type ‘model is used very often for approximations of physically 3-D thin-walled structures (Dietrich and Levy, 1987), The beam ‘model application seems especially natural for modelling of the tall chimney. On the other hand, in case of two-liner chimney FE model has some peculartes. ‘Shear Effect and FE Grid Density In the first place, the ratio of diameter to length of the cconerete shell is about 1/7...1/13. It means that conerete shellmay be classified as “medium” to “short” beam and shear effect should be taken into account. Shear deflection constant 1.917 has been taken as inverse value ofthe shear coefficient for thin-walled round tube, obtained from exact solution theory of elasticity (Cowper, 1966). Recommended by ANSYS User's Manual numerical value 2.0 for the shear deflection constant is based on the shear stress distibution in accordance with strength of materials assumptions Shear effect influence on natural frequencies together with sensitivity to FE grid density is illustrated by the example of tall conical concrete chimney (height 300 m, top diameter 12 mm, bottom diameter 30m). The first four bending mode Frequencies obtained from \7-clements BEAMS4 model, are 0277, 1.107, 2,702 and 5.034 Hz respectively. Percentage difference berween above id the same frequencies calculated using ¥-clements BEAMS model with and without shear effect is presented in Table 1. This table makes it clear that the inelusion of shear effect is more significant than the use of model with doubled number of elements In the second place, liners are evcentrically located to the centerline of the concrete shell. Connection between the top ‘end ofthe liner and the support structure is realized by RIGID REGION. Guides atthe bottom end of the liner are modelled by coupling degrees of freedom for displacements in horizontal plane using CONSTRAINTS EQUATIONS. Modes of vibration in two orthogonal directions named N-S and E-W respectively differ from ane another. N-S direction coincide with the line passing through the enters of bath liners. Such beam model can be tested far goodness of fit by correlation with the shell madel whieh also includes main pirders, Beam vs. Shell FE Models Different FE models for conical concrete chimney (height 245 m top diameter 18.3 m, bottors diameter 33 m, two liners wih 6.5 m diameter) have boen vompared: 2D beam (using element BEAMS4) with shear effect; + 3D beam (using element BEAM#4) with shear effect: + 34D mixed model (using element SHELL63 for concrete shell and BEAMA4 for soe liners and main girders), Frequencies of the first three bending modes, named “beam modes”, obtained from 34-clements BEAMS4 model without liners, ae 0.414, 1.710 and 3.823 Hz respectively. Percentage differences from above values of the beam mode frequencies calculated by other models are listed in Table 2 together with the made number in © fll set of modes. BEAM model has also 34 elements, SHELL63 model has 34 elements in height anc) 24 elements in cite ‘therefore shell element has sizes rato about 0,6, In the case of | liner involved and, especialy. in the ease of the shell model, beam modes extraction from the full sot of modes has been lone by their visualisation and animation using ANSYS GUL Natural beam modes of vibyation for the shell model are ‘exemplified in Fig. | and Fig, 2 ference, Ik is seen from Table 2 that the results obtained from both ‘the beam and the shell models are in close agreement. From the practical point of view it is very important that the difference of about 3.5% between values of the I-st mode frequency caleulated for beam and shell models with two liners is smaller than the difference between values calculated for the same model with and without liners (5.8% for beam and about 9.3% for shell model). It leads one to use 3-D beam ‘model in ANSYS-based CAD. CHIMNEY ANSYS-BASED CAD Two different concepts ean form the basis of the computer- aided design (CAD) of chimneys, One of them is spreadsheet based. The simplest FE model is applied for natural frequency calculations only in separate program inked to the spreadsheet. This approach to steel stacks CAD was presented by Abhyankar (1996), Another way of looking at it is to perform all needed calculations within an analysis package. To accomplish this, the package has to incorporate the scripting language with standard programming features like do-loops, if-then-else conditionals, inputioutput capabilities ete. The ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) fully conforms to these requirements. The ANSYS-based CAD of -multicliners conerete chimney is deseribed below in detail Finite Element Model 3-D beam FE model for both the shell and the liner served as a basis for the CAD (Fig. 3). Wide usage of APDL and especially table-type arrays provides CAD flexibility and ‘minimum input data. ‘Typical concrete chimney has complicated shape made up of several tapered parts. The wal thickness varies piece-wise linearly with the height. Therefore automatic mesh generation is unsuitable. Special procedure using pseudo-key points and table-type arrays has been developed Pseudo-key points are points wherein the chimney taper oF thickness gradient is changed. Usually the number of pseudo- key points is less than 10. Four small arrays containing height, outer diameter, and wall thickness in pseudo-key points and number of elements between pseudo-key points are uused for chimney geometry description. Geometric characteristics of the cross-section are exactly calculated for each node. These sectional parameters vary linearly by the length of the tapered finite element BEAMAA. Analyses Features Model building, applied loads values calculation, static and dynamic analyses, proper load combinations are done automatically in one program run. Three different cases are taken into consideration: ‘© construction stage (concrete shell only);‘© erection stage (shell and one liner); + normal operation (complete chimney). In the last case additional masses of the concrete roof, chokes and ring girders of both liners, dead and live loads on some important platforms are accounted into the FE model ‘The 3-D elements MASS21 without rotary inertia have been located atthe nodes nearest tocach platform elevation, Different analysis types are implemented into design process ‘© MODAL for 37 natural modes extraxtion; + RESPONSE SPECTRUM according ACI 307 and IS 413; + STATIC for dead load, along-wind load and quasi-static «earthquake load Ik should be noted that the static equivalent procedure for ccarthquake load described in ACI 307-88 has been deleted fom the latest revision of the standard ACI 307-95. In the ‘commentary on ACI 307-95 “the prolification of powerful PC and FE programs” has been pointed out as one of the reasons for this decision, ‘Another innovation presented in the 1995 standard is a procedure for across-wind effect calculation The procedure is based on theoretical and experimental investigations of vortex shedding (Viekery and Basu, 1985, Vickery, 1993). Across Wind moments distribution is proportional to the bending moments of the corresponding mode shape. The peak base ‘moment is evaluated over a range of wind speeds between 0.5 and 1.3 of the mean design wind speed at elevation equal to 516 of the chimney height The typical base moment dependence of the wind speed ratio is shown in Fig. 4 Load Combinations In accordance with the requirements ofthe standard ACI 307 to vertical strength ofthe chimney the next load combinations have been exploited in presented CAD, 14DL 1.1 DL + 1,7 ALWL 0.9L +1.7 ALWL 141 DL+1.4 ACL 0.9L +1.4 ACWL 1.1 DL +187 EL 0.9L + 1.87 EL where DL.- dead load; ALWML - along-wind load; ACWL.- across-wind load combined with coexisting long-wind load; EL- earthquake load determined as maximum of three seismic loads: dynamic according both standards ACI 307-95 and IS 413 and static ‘equivalent load according ACI 307-88, CAD Output Description ‘The chimney CAD output consists of a number of ASCII files: © GMKP.TXT - geometry data of pseudo-key points - clevation, outer diameter and wall thickness: © GMND:TXT - geometry and section characteristics at nodes - elevation, outer diameter, wall thickness, internal diameter, cross-section area and moment of inertia; © PARAM.TXT - various parameters used in calculations; © FREQTXT- natural frequencies list; © LOAD-TXT - statie loads distribution by the height - shell weight for DL, mean, fluctuation and total loads for ALWL, actoss- and coexisting along-wind for ACWL, equivalent static earthquake load for EL: © RSLT-TXT - axial force (for DL only) and. vertical bending moments for dead, wind (along- and across- with coexisting along) and earthquake (two dynamic and static equivalent) loads; © CMBETXT - combined axial forces distribution by the height, © CMBMTXT - combined vertical bending moments distribution by the height; © CRCMF-TXT - circumferential bending moments distribution by the height. These moments with tension ‘an inside as well as on outside of the concrete shell are due to the radial wind pressure distribution. Tabulated in these files results ~ axial forces, vertical and circumferential bending moments - forall three eases make it possible to determine the needed amount of vertical and circumferencial reinforcement in the concrete shel ‘The full automatization of the calculation process in the presented ANSYS-based CAD gives to the engineer an efficient tool for concurrent design. Different chimney configurations for one project may be analyzed very quickly fon the proposal stage and optimal chimney shape and main parameters may be obtained in the shortest time atthe detailed design stage als. Chimney Example ‘Tworliners concrete chimney of 250 m height is under construction for the Rutenberg-B Power Station at the Mediterranean Sea shore. Top outer diameter of the concrete shell 19.3 m, bottom diameter 32 m, wall thickness varies between 35 cm and 55 cm. The chimney is equipped with two alloy cladded steel liners of 7 m diameter and 210 m length More than a dozen different variants of the chimney configuration have been examined using the ANSYS-based CAD. The main problem refers to the chimney shape. All concrete chimneys builtin Israel during the last twenty years (dre of 250 m height and one 300 im) have conical shape with 55 ... 6% vertial slope and one liner only. An attempt to implement this shape for wide chimney has not been successful ‘The frst natural frequency inthis ease is approximately 50% ‘above the value in case of one-liner chimney (see numerical ‘examples in Modal Analisis part). Critical wind speed for seross-wind load corresponding to the fundamental mode isproportional to the mode frequency. Base bending moment due to across-wind load is proportional to the square of the critical wind speed. The actually obtained base moment for twosiner chimney is by 200% greater than the moment for one-liner chimney. It is practically impossible to design such ‘conerete sell that could resist to this bending moment Intensive implementation of the ANSYS-based CAD has ven the possibilty to Find suitable shape of the wo-liner chimney. The concrete shell has three-tapered shape. The upper part (irom top to elevation +150 m) is a eilinder with ‘constant outer diameter and variable internal one (om top to elevation +225 m). The middle part (between elevations +150 and +90 m) has a slight slope about 2% ‘The bottom part (beyond elevation +90 m) is high-tapered with slope about (6% Modal characteristics of the chimney and liner with Lifferent boundary conditions (Clamped - Pinned or Pinned- Pinned) are tabulated in Table 3 CHIMNEY FOUNDATION ANALYSIS. Detaled design ofthe chimney foundation strongly depends on piles arrangement and on sizes and location of the main constructive and technological openings atthe bottom part of the chimney. With this aim in view the special FE model has been used. The foundation mode! includes: thick circular ing plate with shear effect (SHELLA3) bottom part ( 0. 43 m) of the shell with openings (SHELL63), ‘+ piles as 3-D springs (COMBINI) Shell to foundation connection is realized by RIGID REGION between nodes at the shell bottom and nodes at midplane of the foundation plate having the same polar coordinates in horizontal plane Static distibuted loads are applied at the top of the shell part. Their values are caleulated in such @ manner, that they are statically equivalent to the internal forces and moments obtained at the same section of the beam FE model as results| from ANSYS-based CAD, Caleulated bending moments in radial and tangential directions make it possible to arrange reinforcement in the foundation plate and v9 determine the amount of additional reinforcement in the stress concentration zones of the chimney shell. Fig, $ illustrates distribution of bending moments obtained as ANSYS output, namely, tangential bending moments in foundation plate (Fig. 5.2), vertial (Fig, 53) and circumferential (Fig, 5.4) bending moments in chimney shell. Egde effect of vertical moments distribution is clearly visible. COMBINED FE MODELS Combination of two modelling techniques described above opens the way to the development of a wide range of advanced FE models. These models may be divided into two groups according to element type used in chimney shell ‘model ‘The beam models make it possible to study influence of | different boundary conditions on results obtained from ANSYS-based CAD. Fundamental frequencies of two beam ‘models are presented in Table 3, First of them reflects peculaities of pinned-hang liners, another one ~ impact of the foundation and piles elasticity. ‘The shell models allow one to verify the beam models and test various constructional features like openings, cccentricities ete. The chimney shell mode! has 83 elements in hheight and 56 elements in circumference. At this stage only the shell models without liners were examined, Table 3 contains also the partial bending frequencies of pinned-pinned and clamped-pinned liners, Complete shell-model incorporating liners and main girders will be investigated after the stcel structures design completion, Prom the results obtained from both beam and shell models itis obvious that vertical stifiness of piles is more significant than the foundation elasticity, Frequencies calculated from rigid piles models ate very close to the frequencies of models fixed at the bottom end of the chimney. For shell model additional case of stiffer piles has been anlyzed.in this case vertical stiffness of piles was four times greater than the previously used value Kv = 45000 vm. ‘The shell mode! of the chimney involving foundation plate and 56 elastic piles has been used for compatison of different cigen-value solvers. The first four modes of 30000 DOF system have been calculated in ANSYS 5.3 on Indigo 2 Silicon Graphics workstation during 20 min by Block Lanczos solver vs. 28 min by Full Subspace solver. The frst seven modes have been extracted by Block Lanczos solver during 30 min CONCLUSIONS ANSYS provides an efficient tool for constructing the detailed FE models of the chimney, as well as for the development of CAD systems usable in civil engineering practice. ANSYS+based CAD of mult-lners concrete chimney has been presented. Different beam and shell models of the chimney have been diseussed. The study made it apparent that more realistic ‘models of piles. should be incorporated into the chimney ‘combined model. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Mr, Lica Mayer, Israel Electric Corp. Lid, for his careful advice in practical aspects of chimneys design, Mr. Dan Lowy and Mr. Solomon Abramovich, Israel Electric Cop. Ltd. for their support ofthis work REFERENCESAbhyankar, R.V., 1996, “Engineering of Steet Stacks: A CAE Solution." ANSYS Conference Proceedings, C. Andersen et al, ed ANSYS, Inc, Pittsburgh, PA, Vol. Il, pp. 297-300, ACI 307-88/ACI 307R-88 Standard Practice for the Design and Construction of Cast-In-Place Reinforced Concrete Chimneys and Commentary, 1989, American Conerete Institute, Detroit ACI 307-95/ACI 307R-95 Standard Practice for the Design and Construction of Reinforced Concrete Chimneys and Commentary, 1995, American Concrete Institute, Detroit. {CI 318-89 Building Code Requirements for Reinforced Concrete, 1992, American Concrete Institute, Detroit ANSYS User's Manual for Revision 50, 1992, Swanson Analysis Systems, In., Houston Cowper, G.R., 1966, “The Shear Coefficient in Timoshenko's Beam Theory.” ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics, Vol 33, pp. 335-340. Dietrich, D., and Levy A., 1987, “Modeling in Structural Mechanies.” Finite Element Handbook, H. Kandestuncer and DAH. Norrie, ed, McGraw-Hill Ine., pp. 4.1544.177, 18-413, 1995, Design Provisions for Earthquake Resistance of Structures, The Standards Institution of Israel, Tel-Aviv. 18 414, 1982, Characteristic Loads in Buildings: Wind Load, ‘The Standards Institution of Israel, Tel-Aviv. 1S 466, 1987, Concrete Code: General Principles, The Standards Institution of Israel, Tel-Aviv. Vickery, B.J., and Basu, RL, 1985, “Simplified Approaches to the Evaluation of the Across-Wind Response of Chimneys,” Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, Vol.\4, pp. 133-166, Vickery, B,, 1993, “Across-Wind Loading on Reinforced Conerete Chimneys of Circular Cross-Section,” Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Report, BLWT-3-1993, University of Western Ontario,Table 1. CONCRETE CHIMNEY OF 300 M HEIGHT. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL FREQUENCIES OF 17-ELEMENTS AND 34-ELEMENTS MODEL. 34-Elements AI% aa% 9a% With Shear EffectTable 2. CONCRETE CHIMNEY OF 245 M HEIGHT. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL FREQUENCIES OF BEAMS4 AND OTHER MODELS, CHIMNEY MODEL] [-STBEAM MODE | 2NDBEAM MODE NS MODE # NS MODE # NS MODE # SHELL LINERS IN FULL IN FULL IN FULL ew seT ew SET ew ser 1 3.4% T 4 0.57% 7 BEAMS4 2 59% T 059% 6 O% 10 | 59% | 7 159% TT “0.61% 2 BEAM44 2 58% 2 R 0.20% 22 0.04% | ‘SHELL63 z 36% 9.9%Table 3, CONCRETE CHIMNEY OF 250 M HEIGHT. FUNDAMENTAL FREQUENCIES OF DIFFERENT MODELS, Hz END BEAM | SRD BEAM CHIMNEY MODEL MODE MODE WS] ta | NS | | WS] fal ew | set | ew | sot | ew | sot # * ’ P-P 0392) 7 3502 | 3 CP fos | 7 | tose | 2 [aise] 3 0.325 | 1-2 | 1.478 | 3-4 | 3.407 | 6-7 | BEAM44 cP fos] 7 147] 5 3430] 77 Fixed 032 | 2 | 14ss| 6 | 3437] 12 CP [027 | 7 | 1a2 | 7 | 3303 | 16 0297] 2 | 1424] 8 33m | 17 Rigid 0325 | 12 | 1477 BEAM44 | SHELL43 [ COMBINTG 0276 | 12 | 1228 ‘SHELLS Cm Fixed 0363 | 2 | 1.636 Rigid 0356] 7 | 1646 0362 | 2 | 1.629] 3 | 3.784] 14 | «so | 37 SHELL63 | SHELL43 [ COMBINTS 0336 7 | 1436] 4 axky 03s] 2 | 1ai7| 3 COMBINTS 0296 | 7 | 1288] 4 | 2816 | 12 | 6098 | 36 Kv 0299 | 2 | 1276) 3 | 2847 | 13 | 6.727