Creation of design models of silos for grain storage under conditions of non‐axisymmetric actions

The article describes the authors' experience creating silos for grain storage models in programs for finite element analysis of building structures. Particular attention is paid to the thin‐walled structures of the silo's vertical walls, considered an orthotropic shell of revolution. The shell is orthotropic because the silo walls are made of sinusoidal corrugated sheets and reinforced with vertical stiffeners. The direct calculation of such shells in finite element analysis programs is associated with great computational difficulties (especially in problems of geometrically nonlinear analysis). Therefore, an alternative method is proposed for creating design models of silos, which allows, without loss of analysis accuracy, to significantly reduce the dimension of models and analysis time, thereby increasing the efficiency of structural analysis. The method is helpful for the analysis silos for non‐axisymmetric loads associated with a moment stress‐strain state in the silo walls. Non‐axisymmetric actions are loads from the filling and discharge of the silos, wind effects and loads from blast waves.