Inspect pre-solved models in your browser in 2 seconds (up to 300k DOF) or solve 1.5M+ DOF assemblies 100% offline on Windows and macOS.
Ostankino Prestressed Concrete Television Tower
300 m television tower with 10 inclined arched leg piers, lower conical base, tapered prestressed concrete shell shaft, 3-level observation pod, and tubular steel antenna spire.
Nikolai Nikitin's Ostankino Tower in Moscow was the first freestanding structure to exceed 500 meters, pioneering the use of prestressed concrete reinforced by internal steel tendons running down the hollow shaft to maintain pre-compression during extreme storm winds. The base consists of a truncated conical skirt supported on ten inclined arched legs founded on a shallow circular ring footing. This 300 m model incorporates the 10 arched legs, the conical base (z = 0..63 m), the tapering concrete shaft (z = 63..240 m) with the three-level 'Seventh Heaven' restaurant/observation pod, and the tubular steel upper antenna mast (z = 240..300 m). WebCAE computes wind drift, fundamental bending frequencies, and shaft stability margins.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •Geometry: 300 m total height, 10 inclined arched base legs (radius 30 m at ground to 9 m at z = 63 m), tapered hollow shaft narrowing to 4.2 m at z = 240 m, and upper steel antenna spire extending to 300 m.
- •Shell discretization: 560 MITC4 quad elements representing the conical base skirt and hollow cylindrical concrete shaft with stepped wall thickness (t = 400 mm down to 250 mm).
- •Framing & tendons: 710 beam elements representing the 10 reinforced concrete arched footings, 14 horizontal stiffening ring diaphragms, internal vertical prestressing tendons, and the upper antenna lattice.
- •Discretization: 620 nodes, 710 beam members, 560 shell quads, 3,660 system DOFs with verified mesh continuity.
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Fixed base supports (all 6 DOFs constrained) at all 10 ground pier footings along the perimeter ring foundation (z = 0).
- •Distributed horizontal wind pressure increasing exponentially with height (up to 30 m/s gale speed) applied along the windward shell and spire nodes.
- •Permanent gravity self-weight (concrete E = 34 GPa, ν = 0.20, ρ = 2,500 kg/m³; steel antenna E = 210 GPa, ρ = 7,850 kg/m³).
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Maximum lateral wind drift |u| = 39.4 mm at the upper antenna tip under design lateral storm wind.
- ✓Fundamental orthogonal bending mode pair f₁ = 0.34 Hz corresponds to the classic first cantilever flexural vibration of the tapered concrete shaft.
- ✓Critical elastic buckling factor λ₁ = 10.6 ensures substantial safety margins against overall tower buckling under dead load and prestress compression.
WebCAE enables telecommunication infrastructure engineers and tower design bureaus to evaluate tall shell towers, verifying wind sway, prestress distribution, and vibration mode shapes in minutes in the browser.
14 days of full Pro access. The first charge occurs only after 14 days unless canceled beforehand.
- ✓14-Day Trial ($0 Today) (cancel anytime)
- ✓Up to 1.5M+ DOFs (direct sparse solver)
- ✓Native Windows & macOS Apps (100% offline)
- ✓Nonlinear Contact & Buckling (Kσ, MITC4, RBE2/RBE3)
Ask an Engineer About Your Model
Describe your part, load case, or CAD format — we reply within 2 business hours.
Want an instant answer on FEA theory or this model?
Click the AI chat button in the bottom-right corner to ask about boundary conditions, stress criteria, mesh convergence, or DSL scripting.
More Engineering Simulation Cases
Shallow Schwedler Space Dome: Nonlinear Snap-Through (Arc-Length)
6-Branch Cast Steel Bridge Tubular Node
60-Story Diagrid Skyscraper & Core
