Static and seismic pressure of cylindrical steel silo model with granular materials

Abstract

In this study, shaking table tests were conducted on a structural model of a flat-bottom steel silo to understand the interaction between granular materials and the silo. The dynamic horizontal pressures induced by granular materials on silo walls were evaluated and compared with existing codes (Chinese code and Eurocode 8) and classical pressure theories. In addition, the interaction between the flat-bottom model silo and granular materials under an earthquake was numerically studied. The nonlinearity of the granular materials was modeled using the finite element method based on an equivalent linear model. The results indicated that the calculation results for the shallow silo model from the Chinese code based on Rankine theory were closer to the actual situation of static horizontal pressures on the silo wall. Under seismic excitation, the horizontal pressure increased with the increase in the peak ground acceleration (PGA) and height of the silo, and the maximum dynamic horizontal pressures appeared at the top of the silo. A higher PGA level considerably affected the peak lateral pressure in the upper part of the silo. The relative dynamic horizontal pressures were lower than the predicted results of Eurocode 8, indicating that the designed pressures for the shallow silo in the specification were conservative. The sum of the static and dynamic pressures of the simulation results was close to that of the experimental results for the steel silo, and the pressure distribution trend along the silo wall height remained generally consistent. The finite element method also confirmed the influence of different PGA levels on the pressure distribution of the steel silo.