Ultimate Strength of R/C Cooling Tower Shell

Reinforced concrete(R/C) cooling towers are the largest, thin shell structures. It is important to assess the ultimate strength of R/C cooling tower shells subjected to wind load. In the previous paper both the crack load and the ultimate strength of R/C cooling tower shell were analyzed focused on the effects of the reinforcing ratio considering geometric and material nonlinearities. In this paper the influences of both the initial geometric imperfection and reinforcing ratio on the strength of the R/C cooling tower shells are analyzed. From the load displacement curves the initial crack strength and the ultimate strength are determined.