Optimization of Casing Wall Structure of Electrostatic Precipitator - A Case Study

The conventional structural design of wallboard of electrostatic precipitator casing uses the wall structure of stiffened flat sheet which consumes a great amount of steel. Consequently, a new structural idea was explored to optimize the conventional design which applied profiled steel sheet and located wall beam and wall column. The codes were written which designed and analyzed the wall structure of casing. On the basis of a practical project, as the design parameters were varying, the codes were used to automatically compute the strength, stability, stiffness and steel consumption of profiled steel sheet, wall beam and wall column of the corresponding design case. Then, the design with the minimum steel consumption was selected as the optimum one among all the cases which could satisfy the design requirements. The characteristics of the optimum section shape were generalized. The influence of structure layout on the minimum total steel consumption of casing wall structure was investigated. The total steel consumption of casing wall structure is comparatively small when wall column and wall beam divide the whole wallboard into several smaller blocks whose aspect ratio is about 1.6-2.9. Compared with the original wall structure of stiffened steel sheet, the optimized wall structure composed of profiled sheet, wall column and wall beam can save steel significantly which can be applied widely in large-scale electrostatic precipitator casing structures.