Structural Behavior of Thin-Walled Metal Silos Subject to Different Flow Channel Sizes under Eccentric Discharge Pressures
Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 138, Issue 7
Abstract
The condition of eccentric discharge is known to be one of the most critical for the design of thin-walled cylindrical metal silos. Significant progress has been made in recent years in devising a relatively realistic set of representative pressures for this load case. However, the consequences these may have on the predicted structural behavior of a silo are not yet fully understood. This paper presents a detailed parametric study into the behavior of a custom-designed slender silo under a set of unsymmetrical pressures describing the action of an eccentric parallel-sided pipe flow channel of varying cross-sectional areas. The results are compared with the reference axisymmetric case of concentric discharge. It is found that the predicted behavior is very complex indeed, and that geometric nonlinearity is of much greater significance for cylindrical shells under unsymmetrical load patterns than under symmetrical patterns. Further, it is found that eigenmode-affine imperfections, which are very deleterious under axisymmetric loading patterns, are instead beneficial to the buckling strength of a silo under eccentric discharge, thus making them unsuitable for use in design for this load condition.
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Published In
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 138 • Issue 7 • July 2012
Pages: 922 - 931
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 26, 2011
Accepted: Oct 20, 2011
Published online: Oct 24, 2011
Published in print: Jul 1, 2012
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