Effects of wind girders on the buckling of open-topped storage tanks under quasi-static wind loading

The present paper investigates the wind resistant design of ring-stiffened open-topped storage tanks based on finite element analyses, in which we use the distributions of wind pressure on isolated and grouped tank models measured in a wind tunnel experiment. The effects of top/intermediate wind girders on the buckling load and mode of tank shells are investigated based on the results of buckling analysis for quasi-static wind loadings. The design recommendations for the wind girders are proposed, which may provide more reasonable design criteria for the wind girders than the current design guidelines.