Buckling of short tanks due to hurricanes

摘要

Buckling of thin-walled, short tanks, under severe wind conditions, is investigated using numerical methods. The shells are representa- tive of cylindrical tanks that failed during hurricane Marilyn in the Caribbean islands in 1995, with radius/thickness ratio of 1900 and radius/height ratio of 5. Several models are employed to study instability: bifurcation buckling from a linear fundamental path, nonlinear analysis of imperfect tank, and dynamic response. Wind is modeled using several pressure distributions in the circumfer- ential direction, and the results are compared with those due to axisymmetric pressure. The results show that for the present very thin-walled short tanks, bifurcation buckling produces good esti- mates of the critical state, however, the structure is imperfection sensitive and this load is reduced in the order of 30-50/100.