Proposal for design rules of axially loaded steel cylinders on local supports

摘要

The present paper presents the final results of a European research project aimed at the enhancement of ECCS design recommendations for axially loaded cylindrical steel shells on local column supports. The parameters investigated cover the range occuring in practical silo design. The shell slenderness R/t was varied between 200 and 750 and dimensionless support widths of up to 10percent of the supported circumference related to the total circumference were considered (4 columns). The strengthening effect of commonly used higher steel grades was also studied (Fe 360 to Fe 510). The basic case of investigation was the unstiffened cylinder with constant wall thickness resting on flexible supports. In a second part the strengthening effect of increased wall thickness of the bottom course was investigated. The project consisted of a testing part, carried out at the Laboratory for Model Testing at the University of Gent and a numerical-theoretical part carried out at the Technical University Graz. The numerical results were cast into compact and understandable design formulae which permit direct comparison with the design carrying capacity of the uniformly loaded cylinder. The test results served for the validation of the numerical procedure and the check of the developed design formulae.