BTW, while wondering about the hyperboloid shape of cooling towers

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(and not running across any strong explanation for why that shape) I happened on the Adziogol lighthouse. "is a graceful vertical lattice hyperboloid structure of steel bars, 70 meters high."



(Now if what you have available is straight steel bar stock, then a ruled surface form must be a great temptation, but surely that's not what motivates nuclear cooling tower builders?)

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Now I'm curious how the concrete forming goes on a cooling tower -- one ring at a time, from the bottom upwards? Can you arrange it to re-use forms? jinian's dad might know.

(By the bristly rebar edge, the incomplete reactor containment vessel had been mostly built upwards, but had a rectangular window still in the side too.)