SUPPORT LEG STRESS IN PRESSURE-VESSELS MOUNTED ON ARBITRARY LEGS SUBJECTED TO LATERAL LOADINGS

A pressure vessel mounted on arbitrary leg-type supports forms a compl icated support system with respect to lateral loadings such as wind lo ads and horizontal seismic motion which do not have a predefined direc tion of action, Hitherto this problem has not been solved exactly, In the present paper an exact solution is firstly proposed which is deriv ed from an arbitrary number of legs with the leg inclined at an arbitr ary angle with the horizontal, The solution showed that: (1) in the ge neral case as to the support systems, the most vulnerable direction of the horizontal loading which maximizes support leg stress is not in t he symmetrical plane of the system: (2) the most vulnerable direction is independent of the number of the legs in the system: and (3) it is not the best case for the system that the angle between the legs and t he horizontal should be 90 degrees, By numerical results, when the ang le is about 87 degrees the support leg stress level is near to its low est value. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.