Effect of varying the size of flatbar stiffeners on the buckling behaviour of thin cylinders on local supports

A steel silo traditionally consists of a cylindrical and a conical shell. In order to facilitate emptying operations, the cylinder is placed on local supports. This may lead to dangerous stress concentrations and eventually to local instability of the cylindrical wall. In this contribution, the locally supported cylinder is strengthened by means of ring stiffeners and longitudinal stiffeners and the effect of their dimensions on the buckling stress is investigated. This study leads to a number of diagrams, each of them representing the effect of one of the dimensions on the buckling stress. In each diagram, the failure pattern corresponding to the buckling stress is indicated.