Simplified numerical modeling of elevated silos for nonlinear dynamic analysis

Silos are industrial facilities used for storing a huge range of different materials. They should be designed to resist several loading conditions, and their seismic behaviour strongly depends on the geometrical and mechanical behaviour of their supporting frame, and the nonlinear behaviour of the content (e.g. friction, content-silo wall interaction). Nonlinear dynamic simulation of such systems can be very time-consuming, and most of the time unfeasible. This study compares a finite element model made of bricks elements and a simpler model with distributed masses on the silo walls. While simplified models were not suitable to simulate local behaviour of the silo wall, they reasonably predicted the global response of the elevated silo system. Yet, the accuracy strongly depended on the rigidity of the supporting structure, and this should be investigated carefully during the calibration phase.