With the increase of capacity and size of the hydro-generator unit, the spiral case becomes a more super-giant hydraulic structure with very high HD value, where H and D denote water head and maximum intake diameter o...With the increase of capacity and size of the hydro-generator unit, the spiral case becomes a more super-giant hydraulic structure with very high HD value, where H and D denote water head and maximum intake diameter of spiral case, respectively. Due to the induced lower stiffness by the more giant size and adverse operation conditions, dynamic performances of the powerhouse and the supporting structure for the giant units have become more important and attracted much attention. If the manner of steel spiral case embedded directly in concrete is adopted, on some locations of the concrete surrounding the spiral case, distributed and concentrated cracks will emerge due to high tensile stress. Although the concrete is reinforced well to control the maximum crack width, definitely these cracks will reduce the local and entire stiffness of the powerhouse. Under dynamic loads such as hydraulic forces including water pressure pulsation in flow passage acting on the structure, effect of the cracks on the dynamic characteristics of the local members and entire structure needs to be evaluated. However, research on this subject is few in hydroelectric engineering. In this paper, Three-Gorge Project was taken as an example to evaluate effect of such cracks on natural frequencies and the vibration responses of the powerhouse under hydraulic and earthquake forces in detail. Results show that cracks only reduce the local structural stiffness greatly but have little effect on the entire powerhouse especially the superstructure; vibrations of powerhouse with cracks in concrete surrounding the spiral case are still under the design limits. Results in this paper have been verified by practice of Three-Gorge Project.展开更多
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.50679009)Foundations for Young Teachers in Dalian University of Technology(No.893219)
文摘With the increase of capacity and size of the hydro-generator unit, the spiral case becomes a more super-giant hydraulic structure with very high HD value, where H and D denote water head and maximum intake diameter of spiral case, respectively. Due to the induced lower stiffness by the more giant size and adverse operation conditions, dynamic performances of the powerhouse and the supporting structure for the giant units have become more important and attracted much attention. If the manner of steel spiral case embedded directly in concrete is adopted, on some locations of the concrete surrounding the spiral case, distributed and concentrated cracks will emerge due to high tensile stress. Although the concrete is reinforced well to control the maximum crack width, definitely these cracks will reduce the local and entire stiffness of the powerhouse. Under dynamic loads such as hydraulic forces including water pressure pulsation in flow passage acting on the structure, effect of the cracks on the dynamic characteristics of the local members and entire structure needs to be evaluated. However, research on this subject is few in hydroelectric engineering. In this paper, Three-Gorge Project was taken as an example to evaluate effect of such cracks on natural frequencies and the vibration responses of the powerhouse under hydraulic and earthquake forces in detail. Results show that cracks only reduce the local structural stiffness greatly but have little effect on the entire powerhouse especially the superstructure; vibrations of powerhouse with cracks in concrete surrounding the spiral case are still under the design limits. Results in this paper have been verified by practice of Three-Gorge Project.
