Pressure measurements in steel silos with eccentric hoppers

Abstract

It is known that concentric filling and discharge are the most recommended solutions in silo design. However, different reasons such as costs, space problems and the client's specific requirements have a significant influence on the final design. Therefore, engineers sometimes need to make use of eccentric filling and discharge solutions. These designs are usually related to phenomena such as unfavorable switches in the flow regime, associated with extreme unsymmetrical pressure distributions around the silo wall, oscillations of the load, etc., which may cause failures or instabilities of silo structures, involving then high costs for the industry and, in the worst cases, accidents where human life may be endangered. Understanding about these phenomena associated with hopper eccentricities is still needed. This research work deals with pressure measurements on three steel silos with different hopper eccentricities. The results not only confirm, at a qualitative level, phenomena that have also been described in previous research, but also provide new knowledge concerning non-symmetric loads in wheat and maize silos with conical hoppers of different eccentricities. Non-symmetric components of the pressures and shifts in flow regimes have been studied and discussed in relation to load assessment for the design of silos.