Buckling of short tanks due to hurricanes

Abstract Buckling of thin-walled, short tanks, under severe wind conditions, is investigated using numerical methods. The shells are representative of cylindrical tanks that failed during hurricane Marilyn in the Caribbean islands in 1995, with radius/thickness ratio of 1900 and radius/height ratio of 5. Several models are employed to study instability: bifurcation buckling from a linear fundamental path, nonlinear analysis of imperfect tank, and dynamic response. Wind is modeled using several pressure distributions in the circumferential direction, and the results are compared with those due to axisymmetric pressure. The results show that for the present very thin-walled short tanks, bifurcation buckling produces good estimates of the critical state; however, the structure is imperfection sensitive and this load is reduced in the order of 30–50%.

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