Abstract: Due to the advantages of light mass, high strength and convenient construction, hyperbolic steel reticulated shell has been used in the design and construction of super-large cooling towers. Considering its large structural flexibility and low damping level, it is necessary to evaluate the wind resistance safety and stability of steel cooling towers. In order to study the whole wind-induced failure process of super-large steel cooling towers, one hyperbolic steel reticulated shell cooling tower with the height of 220 m was taken as a case study. The average and fluctuating wind loads were measured in the rigid tower model under wind tunnel tests, which were applied directly to a structural finite-element model by the wind pressure time history. The nonlinear dynamic analysis of the cooling tower was carried out by using the commercial software ABAQUS. Through the simulation of the elastic-plastic failure of the cooling tower under the action of disaster-causing strong winds, the whole wind-induced failure of the steel reticulated shell cooling tower was explored. Therefore, the vulnerable positions and damage development forms during the failure and collapse process were quantified. It is revealed that the structural stiffness decay due to material plasticity and the large deformation of geometric nonlinearity are the dominant factors during the wind-induced failure and collapse of the steel reticulated shell cooling tower.