A reduced stiffness approach for the buckling of open cylindrical tanks under wind loads

JACA ROSSANA; GODOY LUIS A; FLORES FERNANDO G.; CROLL JAMES

JOURNAL THIN WALLED STRUCTURES

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2007 vol. 45 p. 727 - 736

This paper reports on the implementation of a lower bound approach to the buckling analysis of cylindrical shells for tanks subjectedto wind loads. The formulation is based on a reduced energy model of the shell adapted to a special purpose, semi-analytical, finiteelement program in which it is possible to separately compute the membrane and bending energy contributions. First, the energycomponents are investigated, in order to identify stabilizing and destabilizing contributions. Second, an eigenvalue analysis is carried outusing a reduced value of the stiffness, in which membrane components are eliminated on the basis that they are assumed to be eroded as aresult of mode coupling catalyzed by imperfections. The methodology is employed for thin-walled, above ground, tanks under windpressures. It is shown that the resulting critical loads constitute lower bounds to those obtained using a nonlinear analysis of the shell,including imperfections, and also to those obtained from experiments.