Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Thin-Walled Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tws
a r t i c l e in fo
abstract
Article history:
Received 20 August 2009
Accepted 14 January 2010
Available online 24 February 2010
Shell structures are usually designed by considering their nal shape and conguration, so that it is
assumed that stability during the construction will be satised without further thought. However,
evidence from recent collapses of metal tanks under moderate winds shows that this is a matter that
requires special attention. This paper reports analytical studies of tanks for the oil industry that failed
during their construction in the Argentinean Patagonia under moderate winds. The cylindrical part of
the tanks was set up in place with point welding, but the roof was not yet in place at the time of
collapse. To understand the mechanism of failure, static, geometrically nonlinear nite element
modeling of the tanks was carried out, in which the shell was represented as close as possible to the
actual conditions during the construction stage at which it failed. The results show that for the wind
velocities prevalent at the time of collapse, an explanation of the failure mechanism can only be
achieved by taking into account several special features of the structure under construction, i.e. the
localized nature of welding and the inuence of the incomplete junction with the bottom plate.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Buckling
Finite elements
Structural collapse
Tanks
Wind
1. Introduction
Many structures fail during their construction stages because
calculations were made assuming the complete structure and not
enough provisions were taken to withstand loads before completion. This paper reports failures of aboveground steel tanks in
Patagonia (Argentina), in which the structures were designed
with a top roof but failure occurred under moderate wind loads
before the cylindrical part was completed and the roof added to
the resisting structure.
The authors have not been able to nd reports or studies of
such failures, although a case is mentioned in a book by Noon
(Fig. 2.2) [11]. Cylindrical metal shells without a roof are highly
exible structures and may buckle under low external pressure
levels. Flores and Godoy [4] investigated bifurcation buckling of
this class of shells under wind. The inuence of geometric
imperfections on the buckling response was investigated by
Greiner and Derler [8], who found that the worst imperfection
shape in short tanks was that of the eigenvector associated with
the lowest eigenvalue in a bifurcation analysis. The imperfection
sensitivity was further explored by Godoy and Flores [7] and Jaca
et al. [9]. The incidence of ring stiffeners in geometrically perfect
shells and their stabilizing role was studied by Schmidt et al. [13];
these authors highlighted the importance of having such stiffen-
Corresponding author.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
454
The bottom of the cylinder became partly detached from the base
plate, as seen in the gure. The construction team had left the site
when the events occurred and no one was injured.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459
4. Results
ql
n
X
Ci cosiy
i1
2
2
455
ARTICLE IN PRESS
456
Fig. 3. Finite element model adopted for the computations. (a) Supports at 0.5 m with a free segment at windward; (b) support details.
Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 5.00 m
Tack welds at 6.25 m
0.2
[kN/m2]
0.3
0.1
0.0
-2.0
-2.5
-1.5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
U2[m]
Fig. 4. Equilibrium paths for tank at General Roca. Displacements are measured at
the top in the windward meridian. Supports are uniformly distributed around the
circumference, with spacing a.
Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 4.5m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 8.5m.
with restricted windward node
0.2
[kN/m2]
0.3
0.1
0.0
-4.0
-3.5
-3.0
-2.5
-2.0
U2[m]
-1.5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
Fig. 5. Equilibrium paths for tank at General Roca. Supports at 0.5 m with a free
zone of length b at windward.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459
457
5. Discussion
To have a more complete view on the behavior of tanks under
construction, a third case was investigated with R=15.5 m, L=10 m,
and t=5.6 mm, leading to lmax =0.35 kN/m2 (V=88 Km/h) for a
2.0
Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 3.00 m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 11.00 m
with restricted windward node
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 14.00 m.
with restricted windward node
1.8
1.6
1.0
0.8
1.2
[kN/m ]
1.4
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-3.5
-3.0
-2.5
-2.0
-1.5
-1.0
-0.5
0.0
U2[m]
Fig. 7. Deected shape of tank at General Roca, for welding spaced at 3 m between
fourth and fth courses.
Fig. 9. Equilibrium paths for tank at Rincon de los Sauces. Displacements are
measured at the top in the windward meridian.
Fig. 8. Von Mises stresses in the shell for tank at General Roca (a) with continuous joint between top two courses, (b) with a discontinuous link between top two courses.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
458
Continuous support
200
180
Design Velocity
V[ km/h ]
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Acknowledgments
Z
Fig. 11. Wind velocities that produce collapse mechanisms, under the conditions
studied in this paper.
continuous support, and lmax =0.15 kN/m2 (V=58 Km/h) for the
detached joint at the base with b=5.5 m.
The results of this investigation have been summarized in
Fig. 11 in terms of the Batdorf parameter (Z), given by:
L p2
1n
Z
rt
2
6. Conclusions
The collapses under similar conditions are not limited to the
two cases illustrated in this paper, but they tend to be outside
[10] Lassig
JL, Cogliati MG, Bastanky MA, Palese C. Wind characteristics in
Neuquen, North Patagonia, Argentina. Journal of Wind Engineering and
Industrial Aerodynamics 1999;79:18399.
[11] Noon RK. Forensic Engineering Investigation. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press;
2001.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459
[12] Rish RF. Forces in cylindrical shells due to wind. Proceedings of the
Institution of Civil Engineers 1967;36:791803.
[13] Schmidt H, Binder B, Lange H. Postbuckling strength design of open thinwalled cylindrical tanks under wind load. Thin-Walled Structures 1998;31:
20320.
459