The Strength of Circular Steel Silos: New Investigations

This paper presents a summary of many studies of different aspects of the structural behaviour and design of circular steel silos carried out over the last six years as part of a research programme at the Universities of Sydney and Edinburgh. A review of the first two stages of this programme was given by Rotter et al at the second conference of this series in 1986. This new review summarises many new investigations of structural problems in metal silos which have been addressed since. Topics covered by the updated review are: (a) buckling of cylinders under axial compression considering the effects of circumferential lap and welded joints, internal pressurisation from bulk solids, the stiffness of the stored bulk solid, and the effect of column supports; (b) the equivalent orthotropic elastic properties of corrugated cylinders and the plastic collapse of corrugated cylinders under combined axial compression and bulk solids pressure; (c) yielding and rupture of hoppers under filling and flow pressures; (d) elastic and plastic buckling of rings at steel silo transition junctions; and (e) plastic collapse of steel silo transition junctions. For each of the topics discussed, sources are listed where more detailed information may be found.