Experiments on Stability Performance of Thin-Walled, Open-Top Steel Storage Tanks Subjected to Local Support Settlement

Abstract

Local support settlement is a typical differential settlement which may take place under steel storage tanks and can adversely affect the stability performance of such thin-walled structures. Considering the practical applications of the thin-walled steel storage tanks in industry, proper treatment of this problem is essential to ensure the high structural performance of such members which albeit requires detailed investigations. On this basis, this study investigates the effects of the local support settlement on the buckling stability of two tanks without and with a top stiffening ring through the experimental and numerical approaches. The considered tanks are small-scale models with the height-to-radius and radius-to-thickness (slenderness) ratios of 1.0 and 834, respectively. Both experimental and numerical results show that the behavior of the tank under the local support settlement is nonlinear. Moreover, the effectiveness of the top stiffening ring in limiting the buckling deformation and improving the buckling performance of the tank is demonstrated in this study.