Discharge and the eccentricity of the hopper influence on the silo wall pressures

The objective of this work is to perform an analysis of pressure distributi ons in grain silos for both the discharge and static conditions with eccent ric outlets. To this end, the commercial ANSYS program, based on the finite -element method is employed. In this paper, results are presented for a sil o with a height of 10.5 m (cylinder height 8 m, base cone height 2.5 m), a silo radius of 3 m, and an outlet radius of 0.5 m. Outlet eccentricity rang ed from 0% (central outlet) to 100% (maximally eccentric outlet, tangential to the silo cylinder). Based on the results, this paper proposes new metho ds of analyzing silo discharge and the influence of outlet eccentricity. Th e discharge model combines both dilatancy and type of discharge effects. 3D models were developed to analyze the eccentricity of the outlet. The resul ts are compared with previous research data and with standard design guidel ines.