SIMULATION OF THE FILLING PRESSURES OF CYLINDRICAL STEEL SILOS WITH CONCENTRIC AND ECCENTRIC HOPPERS USING 3-DIMENSIONAL FINITE ELEMENT MODELS

摘要

This work presents the simulated filling of two cylindrical silos, one with a concentric hopper and the other with ah eccentric hopper, both with flexible walls supported on columns. The results showed that, for both types of hopper, the presence of columns led to local increases in pressure just above the junction of the cylinder and hopper, and decreases in pressure below this point. The combination of columns and eccentric hopper led to notable differences in the stresses on the upper and lower faces of the silo wall, which generated deformations towards the interior of the vertical wall when they coincided with the reinforcing columns and deformations towards the exterior in the other zones of the wall. In the silo equipped with an eccentric hopper, there appeared combinations of zones below the cylinder/hopper interface where the wall was alternately deformed both inwardly and outwardly.