Link to Index Page

buckled tall tank

The vertical steel tank on the left buckled unexpectedly because the designers failed to account for the possibility of buckling of the internally pressurized torispherical dome at the bottom of the tank.

Gerry Galletly of the University of Liverpool was the first to recognize that internally pressurized torispherical domes can buckle in the knuckle region because of a combination of meridional tension with local circumferential compression. He predicted the buckling phenomenon for internally pressurized torispherical pressure vessel heads in 1956.

Page 5 / 67