ABSTRACT
Static and dynamic buckling of aboveground steel tanks under wind load are investigated by means of finite element analysis. The theme structure is a tank with diameter to height ratio of 2.5, average radius to thickness ratio of 1,700, and a conical roof. A nonlinear dynamic analysis was carried out for 3 sec gusts and showed dynamic buckling for approximately the same loads as those obtained using static nonlinear analysis under the same load distribution. It is concluded that inertia effects are not significant in this problem because of the differences in frequencies between the excitation and the structure. The tank with the roof can sustain higher wind velocities than a similar tank without a roof; however, the imperfection-sensitivity of the former is higher than the sensitivity of the latter. Finally, it is shown that differences in pressure distributions do not have a large influence on buckling loads.
