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Critical pressure conditions in silos

Article · January 2006

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 Rotter, J.M., Ooi, J.Y. and Zhong, Z. (2006) “Critical pressure conditions in silos”, Proc. 5th
International Conference for Conveying and Handling of Particulate Solids, Sorrento, Italy, 27-31
August, 6pp.

Critical pressure conditions in silos

J. Michael Rotter, Jin Y. Ooi and Zhijun Zhong
Institute for Infrastructure and Environment, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Abstract – Many experiments on pressures in silos have been

conducted over the last century, most of which led to huge
volumes of information. The researchers who conducted the
experiments were faced with a difficult challenge to choose
what to present in a summarising paper or report, and most only
reported the highest pressure observed at any location. This has
produced an anomalous situation because the highest pressure is
often not the most critical parameter for structural design. This
paper discusses the true structural effects of measured pressure
patterns and identifies key items that experimenters should look
for and report in their tests.

1. GENERAL

Over the last hundred years, many experiments have been conducted on the pressures exerted by
solids on the walls of silos. Each set of experiments has produced a huge volume of information,
which is completely unmanageable in terms of the reporting of the results. The researchers who
conducted the experiments were faced with the challenge of choosing what to present in their
summarising papers and reports, and most thought that the highest pressure observed at any location
during discharge of the silo was the most important item. This led to the highest pressure at each
location being reported, and those who attempted to interpret the outcome of these tests later drew
envelopes over the peak observed pressures, to try to capture the highest pressure anywhere. Both
theories for discharge pressures in silos, and rules for the practical design of silos have largely been
developed around the evidence of these pressure envelopes.
Unfortunately, for most silos, the worst event is not one of high pressure at every point, but the
condition of the greatest asymmetry of pressures. Unsymmetrical pressures have received much
less attention than peak pressures, mostly because of the paucity of information concerning the
variation of pressures around the silo perimeter at any level. The presence of significant asymmetry
in silo pressures was first recognised by Nielsen, Askegaard and Munch-Andersen [1, 2, 3],
following their work on full scale damaged concrete silos in Sweden. It was further recognised by
Stiglat [4, 5, 6], who introduced the idea of an unsymmetrical patch of pressure on the silo wall into
the DIN 1055 standard [7], even though the basis for the magnitude and area of this patch was not
calibrated from tests. The importance and effect of unsymmetrical pressures in causing structural
damage was brought out by Rotter et al. [8] in their review paper of 1986, but the first full statistical
analysis of unsymmetrical pressures was not undertaken until the work of Ooi et al [9, 10]. This
work showed that systematic unsymmetrical patterns of pressure, with persistent high and low
zones in different places which persisted from one experiment to another, occur on the walls of
silos. These differential pressures introduce bending into the walls of the thicker concrete silos and
serious membrane forces into the walls of thinner metal silos, causing premature buckling failures.
These unsymmetrical pressure effects cannot be overcome by defining a value of a uniform
pressure on the silo wall, as was widely done in the past [11, 12, 13] for several reasons: for
concrete silos, a high uniform pressure is easily resisted by a slight increase in the amount of
reinforcement placed at the centre of the wall, but the bending induced by unsymmetrical pressures
is not resisted by this procedure, and severe cracking occurs. In metal silos, an increase in the mean
pressure produces a higher design circumferential stress, which is not a critical design consideration
anyway (these silos fail by buckling under vertical compression), but unsymmetrical pressures
 2

induce high vertical compression forces, which are far higher than any values that can be derived
from a design model that uses symmetrical pressures with friction.

2. EXPERIMENTS ON SILO PRESSURES

The one dimensional theories for silo pressures of Janssen [14], Nanninga [15], Walker [16],
Walters [17], Jenike [11] and others misled experimentalists into thinking that there is a single
pressure value at any one time at a given height in a silo. If there is only one value, then only one
transducer is required to measure it. If only one transducer is used at a given level, no evidence of
pressure variation around the circumference of the silo is produced, and the single reading is
interpreted (wrongly) as if it represents a symmetrical pressure variation at that level.
This line of thinking led to ideas of an active to passive pressure “switch”, which persists to this
day, though there is little evidence for this switch in the experimental record, and often only
marginal increases in the general pressure level from filling to discharge.

Fig. 1 Pilot scale silo Fig. 2 Layout of pressure cells and thermocouples

The pilot scale silo (diameter 0.75m, height 5.2m) shown in Fig. 1 was developed and used in
Denmark as a model of the full scale Swedish silo experiments mentioned above, and was
transferred to Edinburgh in 2003. It has many specially designed stiff pressure cells [18] for
measurement at different levels and at different points around the circumference (Fig. 2). A typical
record of the pressures at a single level during a filling and discharge experiment on Leighton
Buzzard sand is shown in Fig. 3, with the detail of a short period during discharge shown in Fig. 4.
During the early part of the experiment, the solid has not reached these transducers, so no
pressure is recorded. The solid reaches that level and the pressure rises, at first almost linearly, and
then slowly plateauing out at the asymptotic Janssen value for the appropriate density, wall friction
and lateral pressure ratio (here about 3.9 kPa). However, not all pressure cells record the same
value, and there is a scatter of ±12% relative to the mean. At the onset of discharge, the transducers
record rapid changes of pressure both up and down, with oscillations that slowly decline as the fill
level in the silo declines until the solid surface drops below these transducers.
The detail, shown in Fig. 4, shows a small part of the variations occurring during discharge.
Some of the transducers at this level have rising pressures when others are falling, but there is only
a very small rise in the pressures in an axisymmetric sense (just 4%). There are times and places
where the pressure is very high (up to 7.5 kPa, which is a 91% increase on the Janssen filling value)
and times and places where the pressure is very low (down to 1.95kPa which is 51% of the Janssen
filling value). Because there are only 5 cells at this level, it is not possible to determine what might
 3

be happening between the cells and no conclusion can be drawn on whether low pressures in other
places compensate for the high values or whether this level sees systematic rises and falls with local
variations superimposed on them.

Pressure cell readings at one level in a test silo: ESRCFC5 Pressure cell readings at one level in a test silo: ESRCFC5
8 8
Discharge:
Storing: pressures Discharge: Maximum 7.5 kPa
7
stable but different at 7 erratic pressure changes,
erratic pressure
different places some very large, some small
6 changes, 6
some very large,
Wall pressure (kPa)

Wall pressure (kPa)

5 some small 5

4 Filling: 4
pressures
3 3
rising
2 2
Filling Discharge Discharge
1 end: start: start: Minimum 2.0 kPa
57mins 1
31mins 57mins
0
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
57 58 59 60 61 62 63
Time from start of test (minutes)
Time from start of test (minutes)

Fig. 3 Pressure observations at one level Fig. 4 Detail of pressures during discharge

There are several items to note here: first, the pressures are not identical at all points around the
circumference at the end of filling. The differences between the largest and smallest at this level are
of the order of 25%, which indicates that one should not expect Janssen predictions to be closer than
perhaps 15%. Secondly, the classic interpretation of this test would be to ignore all the variations of
pressure during discharge and to identify only the peak pressure observed as being significant. This
peak pressure is then reported and taken as a maximum value for design purposes. Moreover the
axisymmetric “switch pressure” theorists would identify this maximum as the value they are trying
to predict, despite the fact that it only occurs briefly at one location. The minimum pressure, which
is seen later to be much more important, is almost never reported.
A more careful interpretation of the test must examine the actual pressure distributions occurring
on the silo wall. These are complex and vary quite locally at times, so a general analysis is difficult.
The circumferential variations of pressure at different instants during the discharge show that
systematic and progressive changes in pressure patterns do occur.

3. EFFECTS OF A LOCAL HIGH OR LOW PRESSURE ON THE SILO STRUCTURE

The complete pressure distribution on the silo at any instant is extremely difficult to use in a
structural analysis. As a result, all standards that attempt to include unsymmetrical features into the
design pressure pattern [7, 19] use only a patch of altered pressure at one height to try to induce the
same effects in the structure as might be induced by the true pressure pattern.
To illustrate the effects of unsymmetrical pressures, this idea is again used here, with a patch of
pressure locally applied to an example metal silo structure (Fig. 5). A steel silo of diameter 12m,
thickness 12mm and height 25m storing crushed limestone was subjected to Janssen filling
pressures, with two superposed local rectangular patches of pressure on a diameter but at slightly
different heights, with the patch pressure equal to 0.2 of the local Janssen filling value. This patch
load is therefore a very small variation from the filling value, and far smaller than the variations
seen in the experiment.
The reference calculation using symmetrical Janssen pressures, with no patches of additional
load, is shown by the triangular symbols in Fig. 5. With an increase in pressure (Fig. 5a), the
circumferential membrane stresses (Fig. 5b) increase proportionately, following the simple
membrane theory assumption which is also adopted by the above test interpretations. But the effect
of the slightly increased local pressures on the vertical stresses in the wall (Fig. 5c) is very different
and extends far from the patch itself. Since the strength of this metal silo wall is governed by
buckling under axial compression, this asymmetry is serious: the axial stresses near the base have
increased by 37%. Since this part of the silo wall is normally thicker and has the added advantages
 4

of buckling strength gains due to high internal pressure and the stiffness of static solid, this effect
may go unobserved.

Local Local
pressure pressure
rise by reductio
on
2 0% by 20%

a) Patch of pressure rise added to Janssen d) Patch of pressure drop from Janssen
25000 25000

20000 20000
Vertical coordinate (mm)

Vertical coordinate (mm)

15000 15000

10000 10000
Near side circ membrane stress
Far side circ membrane stress
Axisym circ membrane stress Near side circumferential membrane stress
5000 5000
Far side circumferential membrane stress
Axisymmetric circumferential membrane stress
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Circumferential membrane stress (MPa) Circumferential membrane stress (MPa)

b) Increased pressure: circumferential stresses e) Reduced pressure: circumferential stresses

25000 25000

Near side axial membrane stress

20000 Far side axial membrane stress 20000
Vertical coordinate (mm)
Vertical coordinate (mm)

Axisymmetric axial membrane stress

15000 15000
Far side merid membrane stress
Near side merid membrane stress
Axisym merid membrane stress
10000 10000

5000 5000

0 0
-100 -90 -80 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 -70 -60 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0

Vertical membrane stress (MPa) Vertical membrane stress (MPa)

c) Increased pressure: vertical stresses f) Reduced pressure: vertical stresses

Fig. 5 Effects of a local pressure rise or fall on the membrane stresses in a metal silo

However, a local decrease in pressure (Fig. 5d, e and f) is much more serious event. The
circumferential membrane stresses again follow the pressure decrease locally, but this time the axial
compressive stress in the wall rises dramatically in the zone above the patch load (Fig. 5f), being
more than double near the top, and more than 75% increase at midheight. This upper zone is the
thin part of the wall, its design is controlled by buckling, and little extra support can be given by
internal pressure or solid stiffness. This is a very serious event and is very probably the cause of
many buckling failures seen in practice that are difficult to explain. It is evident that a local
 5

pressure reduction relatively low down on the wall can have very serious consequences for buckling
failures in metal silos.

4. SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE DESIGN OF METAL AND CONCRETE SILOS

It is evident from the experimental record that both increased and decreased pressures occur on
the walls of silos during discharge. It is clear that there is only a small systematic symmetrical
pressure rise as is suggested by the many “switch” theories, but that very much larger changes occur
locally at different points around the circumference. These changes cannot be detected unless many
transducers are used at different locations around the circumference. Ooi et al. [20] showed that
four pressure cells at one level in a silo give a very different idea of the circumferential pressure
variation from that which is derived from eight cells. But it cannot be shown that even eight cells
are sufficient to capture this variation adequately. No experiments are known in which more than
eight cells were used at a given level.
The experiment described here indicated that local departures from the Janssen value might be as
much as a 100% increase or a 50% decrease in pressure, at least for very short periods.
The example silo structure, in which there was only a 20% drop in pressure, was found to have
very large increases in the axial membrane stress (~100%) in the critical thin parts of the silo wall.
These stresses are the primary cause of buckling failures in metal silos. The effect of a local
increase in pressure is, by contrast, much less serious in silos of welded construction. For silos with
bolted joints, an increase in pressure is a significant event, but this phenomenon is well covered by
current design procedures and is very simple to understand and to implement.
Concrete silos differ in that they have much thicker walls, so the structural response is a little
different. However, concrete has very little tensile strength, so reinforcement is needed wherever
tensile stresses may develop. Unsymmetrical pressures in silos cause bending moments (both
around the circumference and up the wall) which induce tensile stresses on both the inside and
outside faces of the wall in horizontal, vertical and inclined directions, making appropriate
reinforcement a vital matter. Cracked concrete silo walls lead to water ingress, degradation of
product and the potential for reinforcement corrosion which has led to rupture failures in the past.
Low internal pressures lead to dominant cracking on the inside surface of the concrete wall, which
may go undetected until a failure is imminent. Thus unsymmetrical pressures, and especially low
local pressures, are also a serious phenomenon in concrete silos.
The conclusion of this investigation is that it is the lowest local pressure observed in a silo test
during discharge (relative to the mean pressure at the same instant) that is critically important and
that needs to be documented and reported. The highest observed pressure, which has been the focus
of most previous experimental studies of silos, is not the critical observation. Since a
documentation of minimum pressures has never been undertaken in the past, there is a lot of work
to do to establish a suitable database of such information. Once this information is established,
standards for structural design should specify pressure local reductions rather than local increases to
account for unsymmetrical pressure conditions.
Patch loads for steel silos should therefore be specified with great care, as the effect on the
structural design may be quite different from the intentions of the patch load definition.
Finally, it is evident that silo experiments that do not measure the pressure at many points around
the circumference will fail to capture the most important effects, and may also be easily
misinterpreted.

5. CONCLUSIONS

This paper shows that unsymmetrical pressures can be very damaging to a typical silo structure
and it identifies the key items that researchers should look for in examining pressures measured in
test silos. The results of a typical experiment on sand undertaken in the 5.2m high pilot scale silo at
Edinburgh are used for illustrative purposes. In particular, the paper draws attention to the need to
examine pressure patterns that occur at single instants, and to deduce the response of the silo
 6

structure to these individual patterns. It is shown that low local pressures are generally a much
more serious phenomenon than local high pressures, so that most of the literature on discharge
pressures is seen to have addressed the wrong question.
The implications for the design of both metal and concrete silos have been noted, though space
restrictions have meant that the detailed effects in concrete silos could not be presented.

6. REFERENCES

1. Askegaard, V., Bergholdt, M. and Nielsen, J. Problems in Connection with Pressure Cell
Measurements in Silos (in English), Bygningsstatiske Meddeselser 42, No. 2, pp 33-74, 1971.
2. Hartlen, J., Nielsen, J., Ljunggren, L., Martensson, G. and Wigram, S. The Wall Pressure in
Large Grain Silos, Swedish Council for Building Research, Stockholm, Doc D2:1984, 1984.
3. Munch-Andersen, J. and Nielsen, J., Size Effects in Large Grain Silos, Bulk Solids Handling 6,
pp 885-889, 1986.
4. Stiglat, K. Schäden an Silos in Mannheim, Arbeitstagung 'Lagern von Sojaschrot', Lehrstuhl für
Hochbaustatik, Tech Univ. Braunschweig, Germany, 1976.
5. Schmidt, K.H. and Stiglat, K, Anmerkungen zur Bemessungslast von Silos, Beton und
Stahlbetonbau 9, pp 239-242, 1987.
6. Stiglat, K. Beulgefaehrdung von Kreiszylindersilos durch Ungleichfoermig verteilte
Horizontallasten Proc., 'Silos- Forschung und Praxis', Universität Karlsruhe, pp 305-317,
October 1988.
7. DIN 1055 Design Loads for Buildings: Loads in Silo Containers, DIN 1055 Part 6, Deutsches
Institut für Normung, Berlin, 1986.
8. Rotter, J.M., Pham, L. and Nielsen, J. On the Specification of Loads for the Structural Design of
Bins and Silos, Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. Bulk Matls Stor Handl & Transptn, Inst. Engrs, Aust.,
Wollongong, pp 241-247, July 1986.
9. Ooi, J.Y., Rotter, J.M. & Pham, L. Systematic and Random Features of Measured Pressures on
Full-Scale Silo Walls, Engineering Structures 12 (2), 74-87, 1990.
10. Ooi, J.Y. and Rotter, J.M. Measured Pressures in Full Scale Silos: A New Understanding, Proc.,
International Conference: Bulk Materials - Towards the Year 2000, Instn Mech. Engrs, London,
pp 195-200, 1991.
11. Jenike, A.W., Johanson, J.R. and Carson, J.W., Bin Loads - Parts 2, 3 and 4: Concepts, Mass
Flow Bins, Funnel Flow Bins”, Jnl of Engg for Industry, Trans. ASME, 95 Series B (1), pp 1-5,
6-12, 13-16, Feb 1973.
12. AS3774-1996 Loads on Bulk Solids Containers, Standards Assoc. of Australia, Sydney, 1996.
13. ACI 313-97 Standard Practice for Design and Construction of Concrete Silos and Stacking
Tubes for Storing Granular Materials, with Commentary (ACI 313R-97) American Concrete
Institute, Detroit, 1997.
14. Janssen, H.A. Versuche uber Getreidedruck in Silozellen, Zeitschrift des Vereines Deutscher
Ingenieure 39 (35), pp 1045-1049, 1895.
15. Nanninga, N. Gibt die ubliche Berechnungsart der Drucke auf die Wande und den Boden von
Silobauten Sichere Ergebnisse, Die Ingenieur, 68 (44) 1956.
16. Walker, D.M. An Approximate Theory for Pressure and Arching in Hoppers, Chemical
Engineering Science, 21, pp 975-997, 1966.
17. Walters, J.K. A Theoretical Analysis of Stresses in Silos with Vertical Walls, Chemical
Engineering Science 28, pp 13-21, 1973.
18. Askegaard, V. Design and Application of Stress and Strain Cells with Small Measuring Errors.
NDT International, pp 271-7, 1981.
19. EN 1991-4 Basis of Design and Actions on Structures, Part 4 - Silos and Tanks, Eurocode 1
Part 4, CEN, Brussels, 2006.
20. Ooi, J.Y., J.M. Rotter & Z. Zhong. A statistical evaluation of filling and discharging pressures
on silo walls, Proc., 7th World Cong Chem Engrg, Glasgow, p 337.

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