165

Technical Note

Aspects of the elastic stability of walls in

rectangular planform steel silos
C J Brown
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

Abstract: This paper deals with the use of light stiffeners to prevent elastic instability in the walls of
rectangular planform steel silos and offers advice about their most effective use. It shows that
signi
cant potential material savings can be achieved if reduced silo wall thickness is used with
torsionally stiff ring beams or with stiffeners placed on the surface of the plate to increase exural
stiffness. Vertical stiffeners are more effective than horizontal stiffeners in resisting elastic buckling.

Keywords: silo, elastic stability, steel structures, stiffeners

NOTATION 1 INTRODUCTION

a length of plate This paper deals with the prediction of elastic instability
A cross-sectional area of stiffener in plates subject to non-uniform tractive forces. Such load
b width of plate patterns can be found in rectangular planform silos,
c constant where the stored material produces tractive forces on the
D plate exural rigidity ˆ Et3/[12(1¡n2)] walls.
E modulus of elasticity of steel (taken as There have been many de
nitions of a silo and its
210 GPa) associated terms bin, bunker or hopper; in describing the
G shear modulus of steel origins of the load patterns, the rectangular box or bin
I second moment of area of stiffener will be considered as the parallel-sided section above the
J torsional constant for stiffener hopper–bin transition, the hopper being the tapered
k buckling coef
cient pyramidal section. The silo is the complete bin–hopper
n number of nodes construction.
p pressure While little has been written about the design of
phf wall normal pressure on
lling rectangular silos [1–3] the structural design of tanks for
Pcr critical value of applied load the storage of uids is well established [4]. However, the
PTOT total applied load structural design of tanks is unlikely to make any sig-
r hydraulic radius ˆ A/U ni
cant allowance for viscous drag on the walls during
rs radius of gyration of stiffener emptying. In silo
lling, the stored material (bulk solid)
t plate thickness will display the characteristics of a material with internal
U perimeter of silo wall friction—when placed in the silo it does not form a
x,y,z Cartesian coordinate axes horizontal surface. The ratio of horizontal to vertical
pressure is not equal to unity and the system is not
g bulk density of the stored material hydrostatic. As increasing amounts of material are
l ratio of lateral to vertical pressure charged into the silo, the wall normal pressure at any
m coef
cient of friction between wall and given level will increase from the free surface [5],
stored bulk solid initially at a rate equal to that given by the geostatic line
n Poisson’s ratio of steel (taken as 0.3) (de
ned as the hydrostatic pressure distribution based on
smax maximum stress in wall the speci
c gravity of the stored bulk solid). At suf
cient
f ratio of plate width (b) to plate length (a) depth the pressure will become asymptotic to a value
determined by the internal friction properties of the
material and the coef
cient of friction between wall and
The MS was received on 19 October 2000 and was accepted after bulk solid. A typical relationship is shown in Fig. 1. Wall
revision for publication on 17 January 2001. friction will carry part of the vertical load from the stored
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
166 C J BROWN

bulk solid and consequently in-plane forces will act on
the silo wall. The frictional drag on the wall will be less
than the normal (horizontal) pressure, while the vertical
pressure in the stored solid will be less than the geostatic
pressure. This is all well understood and incorporated
into current loading design standards [6].
The two fundamental ow patterns that could exist in a
discharging silo, and the criteria for each, are also well
known and codi
ed (e.g. in ENV 1991/-/4 [6] and DIN
1055 [7]). The ow types are mass ow, in which all the
stored material is in motion during discharge and the
rst-
in,
rst-out principle takes place, and internal or funnel
ow in which a ow channel forms within the stored
material and a last-in,
rst-out process may occur. In the

Fig. 1 Typical Janssen pressure distribution

Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
 ASPECTS OF THE ELASTIC STABILITY OF WALLS IN RECTANGULAR PLANFORM STEEL SILOS
latter case, there is no early movement of material
adjacent to the wall, and modi
ed
lling pressures
continue to be present during discharge, providing
tractive forces. In mass ow, the owing stored bulk
solid will slide along the wall giving tractive forces. In
either case the walls could be liable to instability without
any end load on the plates.
Structural design of rectangular planform silos is
traditionally based on elastic small deection theory,
with the plate taken as a simple horizontal spanning
exural element, omitting any effect of the potential plate
membrane action. Recent studies [8–10] have shown that
the wall normal pressure distributions applied to
rectangular planform silos by stored granular media
may be signi
cantly non-uniform—particularly in the
case of exible walls storing bulk solids capable of
developing signi
cant internal friction. Hence possi-
bilities to reduce the silo wall thickness and to achieve
greater ef
ciency of design might exist, but the checks
for elastic instability must be examined more carefully in
consequence.
Recent European codes [11] require that structural
design of rectangular silos takes into account not only
exural action in the walls but also stresses resulting from
diaphragm action. The examples of diaphragm action
include wind loading and the shears generated in the sides
of unstiffened boxes as a result of wind loading. These
shears will lead to an assessment of the shear buckling
capacity of the side walls; this topic is extensively
p








covered elsewhere. In addition, where heavy stiffeners
are used ( I=A 4 t) then the load may be transferred
into the plates by edge shears. Again, plates subjected to
edge shears are covered elsewhere [12, 13].
This paper examines elastic stability in plates sub-
jected to non-uniform tractive forces. It shows the most
effective use of stiffeners for thin plate rectangular silos.
Boundary conditions strongly inuence elastic stability,
and the paper examines models appropriate for hopper–
bin connections, and particularly for the signi
cance of
ring beam stiffness.
2 LOAD PATTERNS FOR BUCKLING
The plates that constitute the bin walls will be subject to
loads determined by the geometric proportions of the
rectangular planform silo, the material stored and the
wall material. Other factors can determine wall normal
pressures (e.g. temperature change of the stored solid or
external temperature change). In this study the wall
normal pressure phf at any depth z in the parallel-sided
section is given by the Janssen equation:
µ  ´¶
gr ¡lmz
phf ˆ 1 ¡ exp
m r
g is the bulk density of the stored material, l is the ratio of
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
167
horizontal to vertical pressure and m is the coef
cient of
friction between wall and stored bulk solid. l is de
ned as
the ratio of the average wall normal pressure to the
average vertical pressure along the span of the wall. The
hydraulic radius, r, is de
ned as the cross-sectional area
divided by the internal perimeter (A/U).
The initial rate of increase of wall normal pressure with
increasing distance from the free surface is the same as
that for the geostatic line (i.e. dphf /dz ˆ lg), while the
value becomes asymptotic to gr/m at greater depth; any
further charge of material is supported by wall friction.
Increases in wall pressure during discharge [14] are often
simplistically dealt with by considering an overpressure
factor on the
lling pressure, and this may be the
governing design case for wall instability in funnel ow.
For example, ENV 1991/-/4 [6] considers the horizontal
pressures during the discharge condition to be approxi-
mately 1.4 times those calculated for the
lling condition,
irrespective of ow type. Thus the tractive forces are
likely to be distributed in a similar pattern to Janssen
pressures—between geostatic (triangular variation from
top to bottom) and constant over the depth of
ll.
3 BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
Boundary conditions are important in the determination
of elastic critical loads in plates (e.g. Ugural [15]). High
membrane stiffness suggests that normal (transverse)
deformations of the wall plates will be negligible at their
interconnected boundaries. Torsional stiffness at the
connections will be dependent on the method of con-
nection/construction and whether signi
cant ring beams
are present at the top and bottom edges. On the vertical
edges, continuity may give conditions closer to fully

xed against rotation than simply supported.
4 METHOD OF ANALYSIS
The elastic critical load for plate structures can be found
using numerical methods. Here, the conjugate load–
displacement method is used [16, 17]. In brief, the
method assumes that the (not predetermined) displaced
form of the buckled plate can be generated by a system of
normal forces at a set of (n) nodal points. These forces
can be determined from the buckled form and the
membrane stresses that exist using a
nite difference
formulation. An eigenvalue problem results, from which
the lowest elastic buckling loads and their associated
normalized eigenvectors (representing the buckled form)
can be obtained. The number of elements used in the
model [18] can affect the accuracy of the solution. In all
analyses here a square element is used. Where stiffeners
are used, the mathematical model has been shown [19] to
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
168 C J BROWN
give suf
cient accuracy provided p






that

the radius of
gyration of the stiffener (rs ˆ I=A) is less than the
thickness of the plate. Thin plates with heavy beam
stiffeners are excluded from the current study.
In silos, the resulting mode shape of the plate at the
onset of elastic instability is important. It has been argued
that the stored material might provide support normal to
the wall in the
lling case [20] and that the lowest
buckling load might not give the design case. However, it
has been shown [21] that elastic buckling modes can
occur which do not require the plate to move towards the
stored material. Therefore, for all the results presented
below, the lowest eigenvalue has been presented,
irrespective of mode shape.
Critical elastic buckling loads for plates are commonly
expressed in terms of a non-dimensional coef
cient. This
usually relates to end load, but for plates subjected to
tractive forces a different de
nition of this coef
cient k is
required.
The loading is modelled by the application of forces in
the plane of the plate at all nodal positions (shown
schematically in Fig. 2). The value of load (pressure)
used is dependent on the distance z from the unloaded
edge of the plate (z ˆ 0), i.e. the tangential pressure
increases linearly from zero at edge 2 to maximum at
edge 4 and is constant for any given x. This is repre-
sentative of the geostatic condition. Thus
p ˆ cz
…a
cba2
PTOT ˆ bcz dz ˆ
0 2
Fig. 2 Plate layout used in model
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
and
PTOT
smax ˆ
bt
The critical load values given in are in terms of k where
Pcr b
kˆ
p2 D
and Pcr is the critical value of PTOT. Only the fully loaded
case is treated here.
5 APPLICATIONS
5.1 Unstiffened plates
Figure 2 shows the sequence for describing the boun-
daries of the silo wall plate. Three possible boundary
conditions have been considered: S, simply supported
(i.e. free to rotate but not to displace normal to the plane
of the plate); B, built in (against rotation and normal
displacement); and F, free. Thus, for example, a wall with
the side edges fully
xed and the top and bottom edges
simply supported would be de
ned by the abbreviation
BSBS. The top of the silo (boundary 2) is the only
boundary that might be free while upper ring beams could
make the simply supported or possibly built-in condition
more appropriate. In practice there may be a roof on the
silo; de
nition of an interaction curve is beyond the scope
of this paper, but elastic buckling loads for end-loaded
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 ASPECTS OF THE ELASTIC STABILITY OF WALLS IN RECTANGULAR PLANFORM STEEL SILOS
plates are well de
ned by many other sources (e.g.
Bulson [12] or Murray [20]).
The k values for plates of different aspect ratios
(f ˆ b/a ˆ width/height) are given in Fig. 3 for various
boundary conditions. A number of general (and fairly
predictable) observations can be made:
1. For any given aspect ratio the largest values of k
always occur if the boundaries are most heavily
constrained (BBBB); conversely, the lowest buckling
load occurs when the boundaries are subject to least
restraint (SFSS).
2. For smaller aspect ratios f < 1 (i.e. for taller narrower
silo walls) the support conditions on the vertical edges
have the greatest effect on the buckling load and three
cases predominate: built in all edges, simply supported
all edges and built in on vertical edges—simply
supported on the other two. As f tends to unity the k
value for SSSB becomes greater than that for BSBS
indicating the developing importance of the bottom
edge (ring beam) support conditions.
3. For larger values of f, the case with the top and bottom
edges built in has the highest k value. When only the
bottom edge is built in the k value is reduced slightly,
and when it is simply supported the lowest k value is
observed. This indicates the importance of rotational
stiffness about the line of the junction at the bin–
hopper transition in designing against elastic in-
stability.
Fig. 3 k values for different plate aspect ratios and boundary conditions
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
169
The changing value of k may not always indicate a
similar change in the total load required to cause
buckling. For two boundary conditions (fully
xed all
around and simply supported on all edges) Fig. 4 shows
the envelope of lowest value of elastic buckling load
(ˆk/aspect ratio) for different aspect ratios. Because it is
calculated at particular values of f it does not show the
well-known garland shape (e.g. given by Bulson [12]).
It is of interest to note that the lowest buckling load
occurs at a similar ratio of f for either boundary
condition.
Figure 4 also shows k/f for different values of f for
the end-loaded case and for the uniformly distributed
tractive load case. It is clear that these cases have con-
siderably lower initial buckling loads than the geostatic
distribution, and hence their use in design applications
may be unnecessarily conservative.
5.2 Ring beam stiffeners
In practice the junction of the bin and hopper is often
supported on and stiffened by a ring beam. Ring beam
details may be formed in many different ways, but
generally they will provide both transverse and torsional
stiffening. It has been shown that the boundary condition
at this (bottom) edge can signi
cantly affect the initial
buckling load in squatter silos, and rather than adopt as-
sumptions about simply supported or built-in conditions,
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
170
Fig. 4 Elastic critical loads for different plate aspect ratios and boundary conditions
a better estimate of buckling load can be obtained if the
true stiffness is modelled.
Any ring beam present will have the effect of
providing additional cross-sectional area (A), transverse
rigidity (through EI) and torsional rigidity (GJ). The axial
stiffening effect of the ring beam is not signi
cant as the
membrane stiffness of the wall plate is usually much
greater than the axial stiffness of any ring beam. The
cross-section area has been taken as an arbitrary value of
5 per cent of the plate vertical cross sectional area
(ˆ 0.05at) in the calculations presented below; this is not
meant as any form of design recommendation.
Figures 5 and 6 show the effects of ring beam
stiffening for the particular aspect ratio, f ˆ 1. Figure 5
shows the effect of increasing I alone while keeping J
constant. The values of I and J can be expressed in
dimensionless form as a relationship to tD/E, where D is
the plate exural rigidity and E the modulus of elasticity
of the plate material. For the exural stiffness of the
stiffener, this has the physical interpretation of a strip of
the number of plate thicknesses needed to form the
stiffener.
For the results shown in Fig. 5, J is approximately
10tD/E. The other three edges are simply supported, and
so the case when I tends to zero will approach the
notional case when the bottom edge is exurally un-
stiffened but with some restraint against torsion. It can be
seen that in this case light stiffening can have a signi
cant
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
C J BROWN
effect. When compared with the case of simply supported
all edges, where k ˆ 7.15 (which would be coincident
with very high values of I; J ˆ 0) the bottom edge being
free leads to a much reduced k value (approximately 3.3)
and that for stiffeners with I ˆ 100tD/E the value of 7.15
is not approached. Nevertheless, even light (I ˆ 100tD/E)
transverse stiffening has increased the k value to over 80
per cent of its fully restrained value.
For the case where the bottom (ring beam edge) is free,
the k value is 1.43, while for the bottom edge built in, the
k value is 7.55. Figure 5 shows that, for the simply
supported edge case, the values lie between these limits.
Only with both I and J ˆ 30 000tD/E does the k value
approach the fully built-in bottom edge value; approxi-
mating real boundary conditions to the fully
xed con-
dition should therefore only be modelled with caution.
For the case where all the edges are built in, k ˆ 22.16,
and this compares with the largest value of k at approxi-
mately equal to 10 shown in Fig. 5 (I ˆ 1000tD/E). It is
evident therefore that signi
cant ring beams are required
to regain the stiffening effect of these boundary
conditions. Even so, for I ˆ 10tD/E the k value has been
increased by 50 per cent from its unstiffened value, and
so for low exural stiffnesses the addition of even very
light stiffening clearly has a signi
cant effect.
Figure 7 shows the importance of the torsional stiffness
for the same aspect ratio, keeping I at a value of 20tD/E to
give some lateral stiffness. As with the addition of
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
 ASPECTS OF THE ELASTIC STABILITY OF WALLS IN RECTANGULAR PLANFORM STEEL SILOS 171

Fig. 5 Effect of increasing I of ring beam on k value (f ˆ 1; A, J constant)

Fig. 6 Effect of increasing J of ring beam on k value (f ˆ 1; A, I constant)

E04700 Ó IMechE 2001 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
172
Fig. 7 Effect of increasing J of ring beam for various aspect ratios
exural stiffness, small additions of torsional stiffness
considerably increase the initial buckling load, but the
effect is not as marked as with the addition of exural
stiffness, especially with the case of the other edges built
in.
Figure 7 shows that the torsional stiffening effect of the
ring beam is much greater for squatter silos than with tall
narrow silo walls, as might be expected. The
gure gives
values for increasing J for a given value of I (ˆ 218Dt/E)
and A (ˆ 0.05at). Cases where the aspect ratio is greater
than 2 are probably of more academic than practical
interest, as buckling is probably not the governing design
condition in such bunkers but should still be checked.
The torsional resistance of the ring beam has a major
effect and it should be noted that the case considered here
assumes that the top of the plate is also simply supported.
If this is also supported by a ring beam then the design of
such stiffeners will contribute considerably to the ef
-
ciency of the overall design
From the results presented it can be seen that con-
siderable care should be taken with the design of the ring
beam. In situations where there is a hopper present, the
connection between bin and hopper will have an intrinsic
transverse stiffening because of the angle of the hopper
wall to the vertical. The same may not be true for the
torsional stiffening and stiffeners with effective connec-
tion and continuity at the bin wall junctions should be
provided in order to give adequate resistance to the onset
of buckling. Even in these cases, the assumption that the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
C J BROWN
ring beam gives conditions approaching those of a fully
built-in connection may be inappropriate.
5.3 Wall stiffeners
Stiffeners may be used on the plate to minimize trans-
verse deformations or to reduce the thickness of wall
plate required to resist the stress levels that may exist.
With rectangular planform silos it is common practice to
design the plate as a mechanism to transfer the lateral
load into the structural grillage of ‘stiffening beams’,
rather than to use the inherent transverse bending strength
of the plate or make use of membrane action. Never-
theless, it is important to ensure that buckling will not
take place overall or in any of the individual plate panels.
Stiffeners may be placed either horizontally or vertically,
and so it is dif
cult to give speci
c design guidance for
all possible con
gurations. It is therefore useful to
examine the general effect of a single stiffener whether
it is located horizontally or vertically in the panel. Two
boundary conditions have been used; simply supported
on all edges and fully
xed on all edges. The centroid of
the stiffener is again assumed to be close to the centroid
of the plate [18].
Increasing the J value of a single vertical stiffener for a
given ratio of EI/D has very little effect. For an aspect
ratio of unity, the value of initial buckling load is not
greatly affected by J for a wide range of exural stiffness
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
 ASPECTS OF THE ELASTIC STABILITY OF WALLS IN RECTANGULAR PLANFORM STEEL SILOS
values. For the values tested [A/bt ˆ 0.01, EI/(Dt)
ranging from 10 to 10 000] the maximum variation was
4.3 per cent. The torsional stiffness of a centrally located
vertical stiffener may be more signi
cant for plates with
larger aspect ratios, as it might prevent the occurrence of
the single sine wave buckles. However, silos with aspect
ratios less than unity are more common, and so variations
in J are not presented again here for vertical stiffeners.
With an aspect ratio equal to unity the inclusion of a
horizontal stiffener will be much less effective in
resisting buckling than will be the inclusion of a vertical
stiffener. This is shown in Fig. 8, and is the expected
result for such an aspect ratio. The k value is unaffected
by the cross-sectional area of the horizontal stiffener and
is only weakly inuenced by the exural stiffness; a
stiffener with EI/(Dt) ˆ 200 will increase k from the
unstiffened value of 7.15 to 9.79 for simply supported
edges and from 22.16 to only 26.80 for built-in edges.
Fig. 8 Variation of k value with J for a single vertical stiffener
E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
173
This may be a very heavy stiffener to achieve such a
small increase in initial buckling load.
For taller narrower walls, a horizontal stiffener may
have an even less ameliorating effect on the buckling
load. There may be little or no deection of the wall at
mid-height, and so the stiffening effect for a horizontal
stiffener is minimal (if any). For a plate with aspect ratio
0.5 and either simply supported or built-in edges, there is
no effect from changing the stiffness of the stiffener.
With plates of a larger aspect ratio, the addition of a
horizontal stiffener is still likely to be less effective in
providing buckling resistance than a vertical stiffener.
Table 1 shows the increase in k value for a particular
stiffener placed either horizontally or vertically and it can
be seen that the vertical stiffener is more effective.
Using a vertical stiffener generally has a more marked
improving effect. In this case the in-plane stress dis-
tribution is also signi
cantly modi
ed as the additional
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E
174 C J BROWN

Table 1 Effectiveness of a single vertical stiffener on the redistribution of stress in the plate and hence on the
Ratio of stiffener to plate 0.00 2.18 10.92 54.60 218.40
k value.
exural rigidity [EI/(Dt)]
Ratio of k value for single 1.00 1.01 1.06 1.27 1.68
vertical stiffener to that
of a single horizontal
stiffener 6 CONCLUSION

The results presented above have shown that the torsional

axial stiffness in the (z) direction of the tractive or body
force will attract load. This can have the effect of either
increasing or decreasing the initial buckling load. For a
square wall, adding either area or exural stiffness will
generally increase the initial buckling load, although for
simply supported plates (the lower set of lines on Fig. 9)
and stiffeners with low I the inuence is not very strong.
The k value is lower for plates with a stiffener of given
exural stiffness and high area than for those with a
smaller cross-sectional area. Figure 10 shows the same
effect for a plate with an aspect ratio of 0.25, and again
the addition of cross-sectional area has a signi
cant effect
stiffness provided by any ring beam present could
signi
cantly affect the load required to cause initial
buckling. However, great care needs to be taken when
considering the restraint conditions.
It has also been shown that the addition of wall
stiffeners, particularly vertical wall stiffeners, can also
signi
cantly increase the load required to cause initial
buckling. For tall slender rectangular planform silos,
horizontal stiffeners will be more effective in carrying
wall bending while vertical stiffeners will be more
effective in increasing the initial buckling load.
In practice there may be other conditions that dictate
the thickness of wall plate which is used; such operating

Fig. 9 Effect of A and I on a vertical stiffener (f ˆ 1.0)

Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 215 Part E E04700 Ó IMechE 2001
 ASPECTS OF THE ELASTIC STABILITY OF WALLS IN RECTANGULAR PLANFORM STEEL SILOS
Fig. 10 Effect of A and I on a vertical stiffener (f ˆ 0.25)
conditions may include the wear characteristics of un-
lined steel silos, the availability and transportation of
plate sizes for fabrication or the wall roughness leading to
large tractive forces.
Nevertheless, developments point towards the possi-
bility of using reduced wall thickness and appropriate
stiffening to resist wall normal loads in rectangular silos;
such wall thickness reductions will need to be accom-
panied by rigorous calculation to ensure that elastic
instability does not occur.
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