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Dust silos

Dust silos

What was interesting in these silos is, that stored bulk solid initially had a high temperature. This lead to thermal expansion of the silos and some very interesting load patterns as the silos started to cool down.

This lead to several interesting failure modes, and each had to be analyzed with a separate set of imperfections, to make sure that the structure will have sufficient capacity.

Detailed analysis showed, that while stability failure of the shell was possible under certain load cases, it’s the plastic collapse that will be a governing case.

Definitely an interesting phenomenon!

Project Takeaway:

Thermal loads in silos can lead to very high circumferential tension (after the silo cools down). While tension isn’t the worst-case scenario in the case of shell design, combined with high vertical compression this may lead to plastic collapse often referred to as elephant-foot-buckling.

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What Enterfea’s customers say

The first project we did with Enterfea was a silos design in 2015. Their non-linear FEA analyzes allowed to significantly reduce the costs of that project. Recently with the enormous support and commitment of Enterfea, we did a pressure vessel with imperfections design. Non-linear FEA analyzes allowed to save a project that seemed to be hopeless. The level of complexity and detail of analyzes provided by Enterfea always exceeds my expectations. Łukasz with his knowledge and commitment is a top-class expert in the field of FEA. Having 15 years of experience in the design industry, I can say that at the current level, Enterfea is no longer competing with the competition, they set new standards in the design projects and can only compete with themselves.

For many years, Enterfea has been performing for us the static calculations of complex acid-resistant steel tanks for the pharmaceutical, food and chemical industries, meeting the requirements of international standards (EN 13445, ASME Sec. VIII div.2, AD-2000 Merkblatt and others). Most often, static calculations are made taking into account earthquakes for tanks that are installed in all parts of the world. Łukasz and his team have vast experience and practical knowledge in the field of performing these calculations, they are always willing to help and never leave us with problems. Thanks to this, they solve the most difficult technical problems for us related to projects and customer requirements.

We have used Enterfea for a number of large steel tank designs. With the cost of raw materials increasing rapidly, it is vital for our customers that our designs are efficient whilst still being safe and code compliant. This is why Enterfera is so important. The level of detail involved in their complex non-linear analyses provide unrivaled value for money and the service is exceptional – Lukasz goes above and beyond to ensure any queries are answered even after a contract has been completed. His extensive knowledge of FEA gives us peace of mind that value is maximized and risk is mitigated as much as possible in our designs.

Enterfea proved a high-quality approach with the NL analysis of the post-deformed storage tank they did for us. Thorough diagnosis of the issue has resulted in complex output, a detailed report has explained the phenomenon step by step, allowing even non-technical users to follow it up. Łukasz has soft skills allowing him to rebuild one's confidence and engineering knowledge in the so-called “complex-stress-state” with a single phone call. He has never refused to answer any questions and was always calm and patient, while straightforward when talking about his results. If a truly fiendish engineering case exists, Łukasz definitely has the power to deal with it!

We have been working successfully with Enterfea for many years. Enterfea is always a reliable partner for the static design of our conveyor technology. In our current project, we are jointly developing a completely new, statically optimized conveyor system for integration into our standard.

Enterfea is performing all of the designs of silos for us with nonlinear FEA for over 5 years now, and we are very satisfied with the cooperation. Especially since our Customers appreciate the quality of the designs, which leads to more sales for us and no issues with verification of designs by the authorities.