Buckling of cylindrical shells containing granular solids

Thin-walled shell structures are likely to buckle under axial loading way below the classical value. In the presence of granular solids (e.g. sand) in cylindrical shells the stiffness of the contents has a positive influence on the buckling load, similar to internal pressure. In practical silo design this effect is not considered. This is because not much is known about the interaction between the shell and the flexible granular contents and about how to handle this in a computational model. The present study will focus on some simple interaction models. It will be seen that the presence of a granular solid can increase the buckling load remarkably, and also that small modifications in the interaction assumptions have a major influence on the buckling loads.