THE EFFECT OF INITIAL GEOMETRIC IMPERFECTIONS ON STABILITY BEHAVIOR OF COLUMN-SUPPORTED STEEL SILOS WITH ENGAGED COLUMNS

Supporting silo walls directly on engaged columns provides a simple and cost-effective support arrangement for light steel silos. Thin shell structures are generally very sensitive to initial geometric imperfections. By introducing two patterns of imperfections including circumferential weld depressions and eigenmode-affine imperfections, the effect of initial imperfections on stability behavior of axially compressed column-supported steel silos with engaged columns is investigated through geometrically nonlinear analyses. It has been shown that circumferential weld depressions lead to a significant reduction in the buckling load which is closely related to the welding location, while eigenmode-affine imperfections affect the buckling load remarkably only when the engaged columns extend to the top of the silo wall.