Silo design for Bentonite slurry 1

[lahie]

Hello everyone,

I was recently got a project which is to design a silo to hold bentonite slurry for the construction of bored pile.
But the thing is, I can't seeems to find any documents, articles, or handbooks about how to design a liquid-holding silo. All of the handbooks or articles I found are all about either grain silos or powder-material silos like cement.
Does anyone know any guidebook or article about this problem? Please let me know if theres any document could help me to to do this.
Sorry for my messy grammar since English isnt my 1st language.
Best regards.

 

[3DDave]

It would not be a silo, it would be a storage tank. It will have far higher forces involved than silos do.

 

[fel3]

Are you considering steel or concrete or something else?

I have designed steel water tanks according to AWWA D100 (welded) and AWWA D103 (bolted) and I familiar with API 650 (welded steel tanks for oil storage). AWWA D100 and D103 cover short and wide tanks (what I normally see in California) as well as tall and relatively narrow tanks (standpipes), which are dimensionally similar to typical silos. This might give you a good start for a steel design. I should note that when I say I designed these tanks, I didn't do the detailed structural design of tanks themselves because that is usually delegated to the manufacturer. I would design the ringwall foundation, lay out the tank and connections, etc., and prepare a performance specification. I would also have a structural engineer do a pre-design as a base-line, but the final design of the tank itself would come from the manufacturer's engineer.

For concrete, I have used the Portland Cement Association's "Circular Concrete Tanks Without Prestressing" as the basis for designing clarifiers at a couple of wastewater treatment plants. These clarifiers were short and squatty, but fortunately this publication has tables for moments and shear that will get you into silo territory.

For wind and seismic effects and loadings, start with ASCE 7. If you are only required to consider wind for this design, then ASCE 7 is probably sufficient.
If you have to also include seismic (a regular thing here in California), then it becomes more involved. AWWA D100 and D103 each have sections that deal with seismic induced sloshing of the contained liquid, but I don't know if the formulas are generic enough to deal with a bentonite slurry. The Portland Cement Association has a publication titled "Design of Liquid-Containing Concrete Structures for Earthquake Forces." I have a copy, but have never even read the thing.

Finally, following up on what 3DDave wrote, look for information about tanks, not silos. Also search for "standpipe," but please note that many of the "hits" for "standpipe" will be for fire protection standpipes and not what you are looking for.

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill