The Finite Element Analysis Of Temperature Effects On Large Flat-bottom Squat Steel Silos

Steel silos are widely employed to store granules, powder and other loose material, in agriculture, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, electricity and many other industries. Compared with the traditional storage methods, the advantages of steel silos include, but are not limit to, small floor coverage, large storage capacity and convenient mechanical construction. Steel silos are sensitive to temperature. However, the research of temperature load on steel soils is scarce. Therefore, there are potential safety hazards when the steel silos are constructed in an environment under poor conditions or large temperature deviations.This study is focused on the impact of temperature load on the performance of steel silos designed per related specifications. A large flat-bottom squat steel silo is used as a case study. The main works included in this study are as follows:1. The strength and stability of a fly ash steel silo is checked. The static load by bulk materials is evaluated based on the method recommended by the Chinese code for design of steel silos whereas the temperature load is evaluated baded on the method recommended by the Europe and Australia specifications.2. Simulation of temperature load and storage material load on steel silos in Adina8.5is performed. The steel silo wall’s stress under different load combinations is obtained.3. The relationships between wall’s stress and silo’s diameter as well as, wall’s thickness are analyzed based on different temperature and other basic parameters of steel silos.The results show that the wall’s stress caused by temperature can not be ignored for the steel silos built in large temperature difference areas; the hoop stress and the vertical stress change linearly with temperature at the bottom of the steel silos. Therefore, the temperature stress is much larger than that caused by the material storage load when temperature difference is large. Furthermore, the temperature stress changes parabola with the silo’s diameter and the wall’s thickness at the bottom of the steel silos, so that reducing the diameter or increasing the wall’s thickness of the silo might not always be a good strategy to improve the performance of steel silos if the temperature load is considered.