Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped?

#11

Post by jules » Sun, May 27, 2012, 6:44 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #9

martinkallstrom wrote: post #5

tl;dr: It is called a hyperboloid shape and is very strong compared to other curved surfaces because it can be built or supported by straight beams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperboloid_structure

They are also surprisingly closely related to Tipi's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipi

Hyperboloids can be made from straight tilted lines: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Ruled_hyp...

So tipi's are hyperboloids with a small inner cross section.

Re: Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped?

#12

Post by hexagonal » Sun, May 27, 2012, 7:28 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #4

OT: the div#dd_ajax_float element (the share buttons) on that page is really annoying. Its fixed location and its style (e.g. it has a drop shadow, making it seem to be physically closer than the content) make it seem 10x more important than the content itself. I have to set it to display:none to read the page.

I never saw it. It must have been blocked by NoScript.

Re: Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped?

#13

Post by Element_ » Sun, May 27, 2012, 8:49 PM UTC

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #10

The BBC documentary linked at the end of this article, "Fred Dibnah, Steeplejack", is right up the alley of many here on HN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuSW9kOBADo

That is a pretty crazy way to make a living. Here is a vid showing how they setup the ladders on the side of the chimney. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F04dGK1_wYA

Re: Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped?

#14

Post by daimyoyo » Sun, May 27, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

Minor point of clarification: the article says "pure steam...has no ceiling temperature." Water vapor begins to decompose into oxygen and hydrogen around 2200C(1). Probably well above the threshold of anything capable of generating electricity, but it does have a ceiling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting#Thermal_decompo...

Re: Why are the cooling towers on nuclear power plants funny shaped?

#15

Post by crusso » Sun, May 27, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

martinkallstrom wrote: post #5

tl;dr: It is called a hyperboloid shape and is very strong compared to other curved surfaces because it can be built or supported by straight beams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperboloid_structure

Phew, thanks. I'm normally not a tl;drer, but that page seemed to go on and on... and at a glance I didn't see great visual clues on where I could skim and learn the answer.

Truth be told, I only clicked on the link in the first place because the domain name is "howtospotapsychopath.com".