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Extremely Highly Loaded Boiler Supporting Structure and Boiler Roof in India The boiler supporting structure contains the combustion chamber and is used as the main stiffening element of the coal-fired plant in Neyveli, Tamil Nadu, India.

The boiler supporting structure measures l x w x h = 30.5 m x 30.5 m x 124.0 m and has to, together with the boiler roof arranged above, withstand loads of about 46,000 t.

The Dlubal customer Voss & Kamb was in charge of the structural analysis and the connections.

Boiler Supporting Structure and Boiler Roof

The load capacity of the 124-meter high boiler supporting structure amounts to about 8,400 t. Due to the high loading, the structure is completely made of box sections. At the floor level, the support sections have dimensions of 2.4 m x 2.4 m and a wall thickness of 80 mm. All platforms are fastened at the boiler supporting structure. In the final state, half of the platforms (at a height of about 70 m - 122 m) hang on the brackets of the boiler sup-porting structure as "hanging hous-es". At the rear wall, the flue gas duct (d ~ 15 m) is also suspended at the brackets of the boiler supporting structure.

Due to its location, the structure has to withstand very high wind loads. The analysis and design of the boiler

supporting structure (incl. buckling analysis) was performed with RSTAB.

The boiler roof with a load capacity of about 900 t was analyzed and designed with RFEM. The model consists of a combination of mem-bers and surfaces (7.50-meter high beams of the boiler roof). Eurocode 3 was used as the design standard.

Connection modeling in Tekla Structures

The model created in Tekla was imported to RSTAB using the direct interface. The structure was further modified during the analysis.

The detailing of the connections was again performed in Tekla Structures according to the structural analysis.

The following companies participat-ed in the construction:

Customer Alstom Boiler Deutschland GmbH www.alstom.com

Structural planning Voss & Kamb und Partner GmbH Kaiserslautern, Germany www.voka-kl.de/en

Software Dlubal Software GmbH Tiefenbach, Germany www.dlubal.com

3D model of a boiler supporting structure and deformation in RSTAB (screenshot: Dlubal)

Tekla model of the boiler supporting structure (grey) and the boiler

roof (pink)

Connection modeling in Tekla Structures (images: Alstom)