Power Plant Moorburg

Wind tunnel tests and wind technological expertise for the hybrid cooling tower

The new power plant Moorburg located in the south of Hamburg is one of the most modern and environmentally friendly coal-fired power plants worldwide. The dual-unit plant generated an electrical output of 2 x 827 MW and a district heating capacity of 2 x 120 MW. The advanced cooling system, consisting of once-through cooling and a hybrid cooling tower, has a direct connection to the south end of the Elbe.

The power plant was upgraded by a hybrid cooling tower to ensure the necessary cooling capacity. The cooling tower has a height of 60 metres and a base diameter of 110 metres. The special features of the structure are to name, such as the foundation on bored piles, respectively driven piles, the orbital foundation in function of a pile cap and the cooling tower shell, which are pierced through each by 36 ventilation openings on two levels. Furthermore, a large-volume porch incorporates the required installation engineering for the cooling process.

Due to its close vicinity to other power plant buildings a profound analysis of the wind loads on the thin cooling tower shell had to be performed. For this reason ZPP or the predecessor company has been assigned by Vattenfall Europe Generation AG to carry out wind technological analyses to examine the influence of wind interference effects on the wind loading of the cooling tower.

The experimental results have been validated by means of numerical calculations, which enhances significantly the quality of the wind load data evaluation and which represents a completely new and innovative feature in the field of experimental wind tunnel testing of cooling tower shells.