VERTICAL PRESSURES AND COMPRESSIVE FRICTION FORCE IN A LARGE SILO

ABSTRACT The grain flow is a dynamic phenomenon of high non-linearity, responsible for the occurrence of a high index of structural problems in silos, assuming particular interest in Brazil because the country does not have a standard of design of these structures. In order to determine the transfer of loads to the foundations, a silo in true magnitude was instrumented through pressure cells in the reinforced concrete slab of the bottom and through load cells under two of its column. The experiment was conducted during the period from December 2016 to February 2017 in Entre Rios do Oeste-PR. The profiles of vertical and the compression friction pressures were obtained during the loading, storage and unloading phases of corn grains. The vertical pressure distribution in the silo bottom was shown to be variable along its radius, in accordance with the formulation of the AS 3774 standard, an alternative to the simplified uniform distribution hypothesis prescribed by the EN 1991-4 and ANSI/ASAE EP433 standards. We also observed experimentally the non-occurrence of overpressure at the unloading of the silo under analysis. The load transfer coefficient to the column was 0.35, being that the ANSI/ASAE EP433, EN 1991-4 and AS 3774 standards increased this transfer by 6.57%, 35.91% and 75.03% respectively, reflecting the great divergence between these prescriptions.