Numerical simulations of a large-scale cooling tower against the impact of commercial aircrafts

As the highest and largest building in the nuclear power plant, the large-scale cooling tower is more likely to suffer the accidental or deliberate impact of the commercial aircraft, while few related studies have been conducted. By adopting the missile-target interaction method, the dynamic responses of the large-scale cooling tower under the impact of typical medium and large commercial aircrafts, i.e., Airbus A320 and A380, are numerically evaluated. Firstly, the refine finite element (FE) models of Chinese Chaohu hyperbolic cooling tower as well as the above two aircrafts are established by using the HyperMesh program. Then, by comparing with the classic Meppen-II-4 impact test (the fourth shot of the second series of Meppen impact tests) of large deformable missile and the modified Riera force function, the validations of concrete and aircraft models are verified respectively. Furthermore, the explicit dynamic analysis program LS-DYNA is used to perform the numerical simulations of the cooling tower collided by the two typical aircrafts. The whole impact processes are reproduced, and the impact force, damage and failure of the shell concrete, velocity of the aircraft are examined and discussed. Finally, the parametric influences of the impact velocity, angle, and position of two aircrafts on the damage and failure of cooling tower are further performed. •Refined FE models of Chinese Chaohu large-scale hyperbolic cooling tower as well as Airbus A320 and A380 aircrafts are established and verified.•Impact process of two aircrafts on cooling tower are reproduced numerically with the missile-target interaction method.•Influences of impact velocity, position and angle on the dynamic damage and failure of cooling tower are discussed.