Abstract
The buckling capacity of steel cylindrical liquid tanks primarily depends on their geometric configuration, material properties, imperfections, the way they are stiffened, loading, and boundary conditions. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of R/t and H/R ratios and imperfections on the buckling strength of cylindrical tank specimens subjected to external pressure using the finite element technique. Twelve cylindrical tank specimens were considered with radius-to-thickness (R/t) ratios of 500 and 600, height-to-radius (H/R) ratios of 1.0 and 1.5, and imperfection depths of 4t and 8t. A linear and nonlinear buckling analysis using ANSYS workbench 2021 was conducted for all perfect and imperfect specimens to predict the critical buckling strength. The results are compared with the experimental results available in the literature and theoretical solutions. Numerical results show reasonably good agreement with experimental and theoretical results. It is found that the buckling pressure remarkably increases with the decrease of both R/t and H/R ratios; however, the effect of the R/t ratio is more dominant than the H/R ratio. Furthermore, it was observed that the geometric imperfections have little influence on the overall buckling capacity, especially for tanks with large H/R ratios and smaller R/t ratios.
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