| Steel silos are widely used for the storage of bulk solids. While the research of evenly supported steel silos is comprehensive, research on column-supported steel silos is limited. Supporting silo walls directly on engaged columns provides a simple and cost-effective support arrangement for medium and light steel silos.The research of the paper is based on the mature conclusions about the evenly supported steel silos. Depending on the modern experiment method and the advanced calculating tools, both the experiments and numerical analyses are carried out to examine the structural behavior and failure criterion.(1) The established measuremet system based on the laser displacement meter is used to scan the silo models. With its help the 3-D measurement of the initial imperfection of the silo models is applicable precisely, quickly and without direct touch with the silo itself.(2) The measured imperfections are analyzed by Fourier decomposition method. The one-dimensional and two-dimensional analyses are carried out to get a knowing about the characters about the initial imperfections of the model.(3) The static pressure experiment is carried out. The stress-strain curves under the pressure load of the experiment model are obtained, and the failure mode of column-supported steel silos is directly investigated.(4) The finite element analyses, mainly geometrical and material nonlinear analyses are carried out on test models by the program ANAYS. The effects of initial geometric imperfections and stiffness of stored solids are investigated. |
