Seismic Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Silos Considering Granular Material-Structure Interaction

Abstract

Silos are structures that are used for storing different types of granular materials. Due to nonlinearity of reinforcedconcrete walls of silo and incrementally nonlinear behavior of granular material, overall seismic behavior of reinforced concrete silos is very complex, in this paper we have used ABAQUS finite element package for modeling of earthquake effect on a reinforced concrete silo, reinforced concrete silo walls are modeled by shell elements and their nonlinear behavior is considered by concrete damaged plasticity model, seismic behavior of granular material inside silo is highly nonlinear and requires a complex nonlinear description of the granular material, the behavior of granular material is incrementally nonlinear even at low strains. The hypoplasticity theory describes the stress rate as a function of stress, strain rate and void ratio. It can model the nonlinear and inelastic behavior of granular materials due to its rate-type formulation. Granular material inside silo is modeled by solid elements and its nonlinear behavior is considered with a hypoplastic constitutive model, for modeling of interaction between silo walls and granular material, surface to surface contact with coulomb friction law is considered between silo walls and granular material. After modeling, the behavior of reinforced concrete silo under earthquake excitation is compared with a model without considering granular material-structure interaction.