Optimal stiffening configuration for locally supported cylindrical silos: Engaged columns

•FE analyses were performed of axially compressed column-supported cylindrical steel silos.•The rectangular shaped columns are engaged along the external side of the barrel.•The optimal engaged column is determined to maximally increase the failure load.•An intermediately high column with a relatively large cross-section is preferred.•The optimal column is thin and has a large ratio of the radial to the circumferential width.

Cylindrical steel silos are often supported by discrete supports or columns to be able to provide a hopper and to facilitate emptying operations beneath the cylindrical barrel. The simplest mean of support for a light silo is by the use of engaged columns, without the use of unnecessarily expensive ring stiffeners. Such engaged columns gradually introduce the support load into the silo wall by shear, spreading the stresses in circumferential direction. In general, the highest axial compressive stress concentrations can be found in the shell wall in the vicinity of the top of the engaged column, resulting in failure due to excessive yielding and/or local instability.The study aims to identify the optimal combination of dimensions of an engaged column (i.e. the height, the widths in circumferential and radial direction and the thickness) to obtain a failure load as high as possible with as little material in the column as possible. An important condition is the requirement that the columns must withstand a higher load than the silo wall itself. In other words, failure should occur in the vicinity of the terminations of the columns (and not in the column itself). All results and conclusions are based on numerical finite element analyses.