48. Fatigue Analysis of a Concrete Chimney Under Wind Loads

In most cases, tall structures are slender, demonstrating flexible behavior and, consequently, weather-related loads such as wind become a major component. Since these structures are flexible, they may become susceptible to wind induced fatigue. The effect of wind presents itself as dynamic load and can affect structures randomly in an infinite number of cycles, producing significant stress variations. The aim of this work is to present an evaluation of fatigue of a reinforced 180-meter-concrete chimney, at its most critical section, through a non-linear dynamic analysis. The method provides a full dynamic analysis which takes into account the geometric nonlinearities, the aerodynamic and structural damping. The numerical results were evaluated according to the fatigue limit specified by ABNT NBR 6118:2014.