PROPOSAL FOR DESIGN RULES OF AXIALLY LOADED STEEL CYLINDERS ON LOCAL SUPPORTS

This paper presents the final results of a European research project a imed at the enhancement of ECCS design recommendations for axially loa ded cylindrical steel shells on local column supports. The parameters investigated cover the range occurring in practical silo design. The s hell slenderness R/t was varied between 200 and 750 and dimensionless support widths of up to 10% of the supported circumference related to the total circumference were considered (four columns). The strengthen ing effect of commonly used higher steel grades was also studied (Fe 3 60 to Fe 510). The basic case of investigation was the unstiffened cyl inder with constant wall thickness resting on flexible supports. In a second experiment the strengthening effect of increased wall thickness of the bottom course was investigated. The project consisted of a tes ting part, carried out at the Laboratory for Model Testing at the Univ ersity of Gent and a numerical-theoretical part carried out at the Tec hnical University Graz. The numerical results were cast into compact a nd understandable design formulae which permit direct comparison with the design carrying capacity of the uniformly loaded cylinder. The tes t results served for the validation of the numerical procedure and the check of the developed design formulae. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.