Most of the industrial steel chimneys are tall structures with circular cross-sections. Such slender, lightly damped structures are prone to wind-exited vibration. Geometry of a self supporting steel chimney plays an important role in its structural behaviour under lateral dynamic loading. This is because geometry is primarily responsible for the stiffness parameters of the chimney. However, basic dimensions of industrial self supporting steel chimney, such as height, diameter at exit, etc., are generally derived from the associated environmental conditions. To ensure a desired failure mode design code (IS-6533: 1989 Part 2) imposes several criteria on the geometry (top-to-base diameter ratio and height-to-base diameter ratio) of steel chimneys. The objective of the present study is to justify the code criteria with regard to basic dimensions of industrial steel chimney.
A total of 66 numbers self supporting steel flared unlined chimneys with different top-to-base diameter ratio and height-to-base diameter ratio were considered for this study. The thickness of the chimney was kept constant for all the cases. Maximum bending moment and stress for all the chimneys were calculated for dynamic wind load as per the procedure given in IS 6533: 1989 (Part 2) using MathCAD software. Also the results were verified with the finite element analysis using commercial software ANSYS. Basic wind speed of 210 km/h which corresponds to costal Orissa area is considered for these calculations. Maximum base moments and associated steel stresses were plotted as a function of top-to-base diameter ratio and height-to-base diameter ratio. The results obtained from this analysis do not agree with the code criteria
