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J.M.F.G. Holst and J.M. Rotter

Early attempts to evaluate stresses in the tank wall were described by Marr et al. (1982), who concluded that De Beer (1969) had made the only study dealing with overstressing of the shell. However, De Beer assumed that the tank wall is like a horizontal beam in bending, which is a poor representation of the shell structures response. Gazioglu and Withiam (1984) attempted to measure the stresses developing in a tank wall during large non-uniform settlements using strain gauges. Unfortunately, their measurements are insufciently complete to make any deductions about buckling, because only principal stresses were reported with no indication of tension or compression. They used 0.6 of the yield stress as a failure criterion, which is not very meaningful, and the tank did not fail, so little can be deduced from this test. The rst useful analysis was developed by Greiner (1980) who used the semimembrane theory of shells to obtain algebraic expressions for the stresses. This line was followed by Kamyab and Palmer (1989, 1991) and Palmer (1994). Finally, Hornung and Saal (1996, 1997) extended the semi-membrane treatment to shells of varying thickness. These studies lead to rather complicated equations that are the most general available solutions for the problem. The solution given by Palmer (1994) for a uniform thickness wall nds the meridional membrane stress resultant Nn in the nth harmonic at the base as Nn = un 3Et H g8 1 + kg 6 + g 8 (7)

where f , g and k are given by Eqs (4)(6). Since differential settlements beneath the wall are difcult to predict in advance, this problem is more often one of evaluation of an existing structure than prediction of a planned structure. Where a settlement problem is being assessed, much is known about the tank geometry and the pattern and amplitudes of settlement. In these cases, the best method of evaluating the consequences is to obtain a good estimate of the complete distribution of settlements beneath the tank perimeter in the manner described above, to follow this with a full shell bending nite element analysis to determine the deformations and stresses developing in both the shell wall and the ring or roof, and to apply appropriate failure criteria to determine the consequences. Procedures of this kind were employed by Rotter (1987), Jonaidi and Ansourian (1996, 1998) and Hornung and Saal (1996, 1997). Buckling of the wall under axial compressive stresses Since differential warping settlements induce axial compressive stresses near the bottom of the tank wall, and catastrophic buckling under axial compression occurs at very low stresses in thin cylindrical shells (Yamaki 1984; Rotter 1985, 2002; ECCS 1988), it is natural to suppose that a buckling failure of the wall should be expected. However, there are reasonable grounds for thinking that these buckles may be stable and not catastrophic, as they are local (taking up only a small part