ARTICLE IN PRESS

Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Thin-Walled Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tws

Wind buckling of metal tanks during their construction

Rossana C. Jaca a, Luis A. Godoy b,
a
b

Department of Constructions, School of Engineering, National University of Comahue 8300-Neuquen, Argentina

Structures Department, FCEFyN, National University of Cordoba and CONICET, PO Box 916, Cordoba 5000, Argentina

a r t i c l e in fo

abstract

Article history:
Received 20 August 2009
Accepted 14 January 2010
Available online 24 February 2010

Shell structures are usually designed by considering their nal shape and conguration, so that it is
assumed that stability during the construction will be satised without further thought. However,
evidence from recent collapses of metal tanks under moderate winds shows that this is a matter that
requires special attention. This paper reports analytical studies of tanks for the oil industry that failed
during their construction in the Argentinean Patagonia under moderate winds. The cylindrical part of
the tanks was set up in place with point welding, but the roof was not yet in place at the time of
collapse. To understand the mechanism of failure, static, geometrically nonlinear nite element
modeling of the tanks was carried out, in which the shell was represented as close as possible to the
actual conditions during the construction stage at which it failed. The results show that for the wind
velocities prevalent at the time of collapse, an explanation of the failure mechanism can only be
achieved by taking into account several special features of the structure under construction, i.e. the
localized nature of welding and the inuence of the incomplete junction with the bottom plate.
& 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Buckling
Finite elements
Structural collapse
Tanks
Wind

1. Introduction
Many structures fail during their construction stages because
calculations were made assuming the complete structure and not
enough provisions were taken to withstand loads before completion. This paper reports failures of aboveground steel tanks in
Patagonia (Argentina), in which the structures were designed
with a top roof but failure occurred under moderate wind loads
before the cylindrical part was completed and the roof added to
the resisting structure.
The authors have not been able to nd reports or studies of
such failures, although a case is mentioned in a book by Noon
(Fig. 2.2) [11]. Cylindrical metal shells without a roof are highly
exible structures and may buckle under low external pressure
levels. Flores and Godoy [4] investigated bifurcation buckling of
this class of shells under wind. The inuence of geometric
imperfections on the buckling response was investigated by
Greiner and Derler [8], who found that the worst imperfection
shape in short tanks was that of the eigenvector associated with
the lowest eigenvalue in a bifurcation analysis. The imperfection
sensitivity was further explored by Godoy and Flores [7] and Jaca
et al. [9]. The incidence of ring stiffeners in geometrically perfect
shells and their stabilizing role was studied by Schmidt et al. [13];
these authors highlighted the importance of having such stiffen-

 Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: rjaca@uncoma.edu.ar (R.C. Jaca),

lgodoy@com.uncor.edu (L.A. Godoy).
0263-8231/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tws.2010.01.001

ers to control the deections at the free end in an open tank.

Flores and Godoy [5,6] and Sosa and Godoy [14] considered
nonlinear static and dynamic response of open top tanks, and
concluded that for the most common geometric congurations
employed in the oil industry, the incidence of inertia forces in an
empty tank may be neglected, with the consequence that tanks
can be safely analyzed using static buckling methods. This was
conrmed by a study of natural frequencies of empty tanks by
Virella et al. [15].
Although those references are closely related to the topic of
this paper, the models are not entirely adequate to represent the
buckling of tanks during their construction, at least for the cases
reported in the northern part of Patagonia. The reasons are that
incomplete welding is used during the construction, and this
further reduces the buckling strength of the shell.
The collapses investigated are reported in Section 2, whereas
the computational modeling is explained in Section 3. The results
of both cases are discussed in Section 4.

2. Description of two collapses in Patagonia

2.1. Collapse in General Roca, 2001
On January 30, 2001, a tank that was under construction at an
oil plant located 10 Km north of General Roca (Province of
Neuquen, Argentina), collapsed under moderate winds. The
diameter of the tank was 31 m, with a design height for the

ARTICLE IN PRESS
454

R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

completed structure of 9 m; however, the tank collapsed when

construction had reached 7.50 m in elevation. The material used
was steel characterized as ASTM A-36, with thickness 3/16 in.
To understand the reasons for the collapse, it is necessary to
consider the construction schedule followed. The circular bottom
plate was rst completed and then cylindrical rings (with 8 ft.
height) were added and welded on top. Each ring was completed
and welded on its sides before placing it in the structure by means
of a crane. The joint between the shell and the bottom plate was
temporarily made by means of point welds of 20 mm at 0.50 m
between them. This welding procedure is explicitly accepted by
API 650 [3]. The reason to follow such construction schedule was
due to the short time available to use the cranes, so that it was
expected to set the structural components in place before the
welding process was completed around the perimeter.
At the beginning of the works on January 30, 2001, four courses
were in place in the structure, with welding completed between
them but only tack welded at the base. The fth course was added
with tack welds on that day. During the morning, the weather was
good, with sun and no winds. However, a wind storm developed
during the afternoon, with wind gusts of 50 Km/h recorded at the
local airport in Neuquen. This would have been a low wind pressure
for the tank when completed (which included a roof), because
the design wind was 150 Km/h. Oscillations in the shell developed
under wind, with maximum amplitude reported to be in the order of
0.30 m. This motivated that the engineers decided to provide
additional bracing by means of cables.
Collapse occurred between 6 and 7 pm. The collapse mode is
shown in Fig. 1, with deections towards the inside of the shell in
the lower courses and towards the outside in the top courses.

The bottom of the cylinder became partly detached from the base
plate, as seen in the gure. The construction team had left the site
when the events occurred and no one was injured.

2.2. Collapse in rincon de los Sauces, 2006

The case of General Roca was only an example of the collapse
of a tank during its construction in Patagonia. Another example
known to the authors occurred on January 11, 2006, at an oil plant
located north-west of Rincon de los Sauces (Province of Neuquen,
Argentina) under very similar conditions. In this case, the tank
was smaller, with 14.70 m diameter and total height of the
structure of 9.75 m, of which 9 m were constructed at the day of
collapse. The steel used in this tank was specied as F-24, with
plate thickness of 1/4 in.
At the beginning of the day ve courses were in place and welded,
but again welding at the base was partial, with tack welds of
approximately 20 mm spaced at 0.50 m from each other. The workers
mounted a sixth course during that day and partially welded it to the
lower shell. Again, it was a clear day in the morning but a wind storm
developed in the afternoon. The shell was provided overall support
due to large oscillations caused by wind, but it buckled as shown in
Fig. 2. No records of wind speed were available at the plant, but gust
values of 64.4 Km/h were recorded at the local airport, which is
located 30 Km from the oil plant. It is worth mentioning that the
airport is located close to the town in a zone with vegetation, whereas
the plant is in at terrain without vegetation, so that it is expected
that the winds acting on the tank may have been higher than those
recorded at the airport.

Fig. 1. Collapsed tank in General Roca, 2001.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

contribution to the stiffness of the structure was required to

achieve a representative model.
It was assumed that the structure had a discontinuous junction
between the cylinder and the plate, and a discontinuous joint
between the top two courses. The incomplete wielding was
representing by attaching some cylinder nodes to the bottom
plate and leaving some without connection. Notice that the nite
element mesh at the tack welds did not attempt to represent
stress concentrations and only part of a global representation of
the structural stiffness for the purpose of computing the overall
stability of the shell. A similar scheme was adopted at the joint
between the two upper courses to represent welding points
spaced at 0.50 m. The reports indicated that the cylinder lost part
of its support during the process leading to buckling. For this
reason, several scenarios were considered in the analysis, in
which spacing between welds at the windward zone were
assumed.
Two types of stability analyses were carried out in each case: a
bifurcation analysis, to compute approximate estimates of
buckling loads (eigenvalues) and buckling modes (eigenvectors),
and a nonlinear analysis. The geometrically nonlinear analysis
was carried out using an incremental algorithm in which the
external pressures were increased by means of a parameter l that
scales a reference pressure conguration of Eq. (1).
Shell structures are sensitive to the presence of small
geometric imperfections with respect to the as-designed shape.
This incidence was taken into account by means of an initial
imperfection with an assumed geometry and a maximum
amplitude value denoted by x. Based on experience of similar
tanks, the assumed shape of the imperfection was adopted as the
eigenmode of the lowest eigenvalue computed in the bifurcation
analysis of the structure in each case. The imperfection amplitude
was taken as twice the shell thickness, i.e. x =2t.

Fig. 2. Collapsed tank in Rincon de los Sauces, 2006.

3. Modeling of the tanks under construction

4. Results

A nite element model of tanks during their construction

requires representing wind pressures acting on an incomplete
structure. The pressure distributions due to wind has been
modeled in a classical way by means of pressure distributions
for open tanks in the form:

4.1. Analysis of the collapse at General Roca

ql

n
X

Ci cosiy

i1

where q is the external static pressure due to wind; l is the load

parameter used to increase the reference load; and y is the
circumferential angle with respect to the windward meridian. The
Fourier coefcients play the role of Cp (pressure coefcient) values
and are given by [12]: C0 = 0.387, C1 = 0.338, C2 =  0.533,
C3 =  0.471, C4 =  0.166, C5 = 0.0666, C6 =0.055.
The relation between wind pressures q and velocities V was
assumed in the form given by ASCE-7-05 [2]:
q 0:613Kz Kzt Kd IV 2

2
2

455

where q is given in [N/m ]; V is given in [m/s]; and unit values

were assumed for the topographic factor Kzt, the wind directionality factor Kd, and the importance factor I for Category II . A value
Kz = 0.94 was adopted for the exposure factor.
The structure was modeled using the general purpose nite
element code ABAQUS [1] using eight-node two dimensional shell
nite elements, identied as S8R5 in the program. The models
included both the bottom plate and the shell, as illustrated in
Fig. 3. Preliminary studies indicated that it was not necessary to
include the complete bottom plate in the model, because only its

For the worse scenario at the base, the separation a between

welds was assumed to be uniform around the circumference. The
equilibrium paths computed from the nonlinear analysis are
shown in Fig. 4. In all cases, there was a stable path up to a
maximum lmax of the load parameter and then the path became
unstable and descendent. For a =5 m, lmax = 0.162 kN/m2 whereas
for a = 6.25 m, lmax = 0.133 kN/m2 (or V =54.6 Km/h). Such values
are of the same order as those recorded at the time of the collapse
of the structure.
Alternative scenarios were also investigated, in which there was
a section with length b that was detached from the base and then
the shell was joined by welds at 0.50 m. Results for this case are
shown in Fig. 5. For b=4.5 m, lmax =0.130 kN/m2 (V=54.1 Km/h);
whereas for b=8.5 m (but with a tack weld at the windward
meridian), then lmax =0.126 kN/m2 (V=53.2 Km/h).
The previous results are indicative that the wind velocities
required to buckle the tank are consistent with what was
recorded in the eld. The deected shape of the tank resulting
from the computations (Fig. 6) is also consistent with the buckled
shape shown in Fig. 1.
Next, attention focuses on the connection between the top two
courses of the tank at the time of collapse. Reports of the
construction team indicated that about 30% of the perimeter had
tack welds. Several cases were computed by assuming welds spaced
at uniform distance c along the perimeter between the fourth
and fth courses. For c=3 m, a maximum value lmax =0.13 kN/m2
was computed, whereas for an arbitrarily larger value of c=6 m,

ARTICLE IN PRESS
456

R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

Fig. 3. Finite element model adopted for the computations. (a) Supports at 0.5 m with a free segment at windward; (b) support details.

Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 5.00 m
Tack welds at 6.25 m

0.2

[kN/m2]

0.3

0.1

0.0
-2.0

-2.5

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

U2[m]
Fig. 4. Equilibrium paths for tank at General Roca. Displacements are measured at
the top in the windward meridian. Supports are uniformly distributed around the
circumference, with spacing a.

Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 4.5m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 8.5m.
with restricted windward node

0.2

[kN/m2]

0.3

0.1

0.0
-4.0

-3.5

-3.0

-2.5

-2.0
U2[m]

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

Fig. 5. Equilibrium paths for tank at General Roca. Supports at 0.5 m with a free
zone of length b at windward.

the maximum was drastically reduced to lmax =0.07 kN/m2. The

deected shape for c=3 m is shown in Fig. 7, and is consistent with
eld observations and photographs. The wind speed at which
buckling occurs in this scenario is V=52 Km/h.
The buckling process in this thin-walled tank is basically elastic,
but as the structure has large deections in the post-critical range,

Fig. 6. Deected shape of tank at General Roca.

it is expected that it will have plasticity. The von Misses criterion

was employed to model plasticity using sy =216 MPa, and the
stresses are shown in Fig. 8 for two models, one in which the top
courses remain attached by a continuous joint, and another
conguration in which the two are separated as explained before,
with c=3 m. The zones colored in green or yellow show the
occurrence of plasticity, and it is found to start at the lower levels
of the shell in the windward region and extend towards the
open top.

4.2. Other welding scenarios

It was shown in the previous section that the tank in General
Roca was unable to stand low wind speeds due to the weaknesses

ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

introduced by the incomplete welding schedule employed. The

question remains about the expected behavior if a more complete
welding had been introduced in the structure during its
construction. In an attempt to answer such question, other
models were investigated.
First, a scenario was assumed in which the cylindrical shell was
completely welded at the base before the top rings were set in place.
As a reference value, a bifurcation analysis of this case yields
lmax =0.46 kN/m2 (or V=102 Km/h), whereas the nonlinear analysis
identies a maximum at lmax =0.31 kN/m2 (or V=83 Km/h). The
equilibrium path is shown in Fig. 4, with a large drop in the postbuckling path that takes a maximum at lmax =0.31 kN/m2 and a
minimum at lmax =0.06 kN/m2.
Second, it was assumed that the tack welds were present at the
base at 0.50 m of each other, and that failure of such localized
welds did not occur. The equilibrium path is also shown in Fig. 4,
with lmax =0.29 kN/m2 and V= 81 Km/h, thus showing a response
similar to the case with a continuous support. As a reference
value, a bifurcation analysis in this case leads to lc = 0.41 kN/m2
(V= 96 Km/h).

457

4.3. Analysis of the collapse at Rincon de los Sauces

A similar study was conducted for the tank that collapsed at
Rincon de los Sauces in 2006. This tank had a smaller diameter and a
thicker shell, and the collapse occurred under higher wind speeds.
The equilibrium paths computed via a geometrically nonlinear
analysis are shown in Fig. 9. In the most severe conguration, it was
assumed that the shell was attached at the base plate on the
windward meridian but that there was a part not attached with
length b. For b=11 m, lmax =0.43 kN/m2 (V=98 Km/h), whereas for
b=14 m, lmax =0.36 kN/m2 (V=90 Km/h). The deected shape of the
tank is shown in Fig. 10, and is in good agreement with the actual
failure mode reported in the eld (Fig. 2).
If the cylinder had been completely welded at its base, the value
of maximum load before buckling would be lmax =1.64 kN/m2
(V=192 Km/h), whereas with welds at 0.50 m, one gets lmax =1.52
kN/m2 (V=185 Km/h), which are much higher than those obtained
from incomplete attachment models.

5. Discussion
To have a more complete view on the behavior of tanks under
construction, a third case was investigated with R=15.5 m, L=10 m,
and t=5.6 mm, leading to lmax =0.35 kN/m2 (V=88 Km/h) for a
2.0
Continuous support
Tack welds at 0.50 m
Tack welds at 3.00 m
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 11.00 m
with restricted windward node
Tack welds at 0.50 m from 14.00 m.
with restricted windward node

1.8
1.6

1.0
0.8

1.2

[kN/m ]

1.4

0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
-3.5

-3.0

-2.5

-2.0

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

U2[m]
Fig. 7. Deected shape of tank at General Roca, for welding spaced at 3 m between
fourth and fth courses.

Fig. 9. Equilibrium paths for tank at Rincon de los Sauces. Displacements are
measured at the top in the windward meridian.

Fig. 8. Von Mises stresses in the shell for tank at General Roca (a) with continuous joint between top two courses, (b) with a discontinuous link between top two courses.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
458

R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

public knowledge because they occur in the private property of an

oil facility. The strong similarities between the two collapses
reported in this paper are indicative of a pattern that occurs in the
northern part of Patagonia, with high winds during January [10]
and at the same time, being that part of the summer adequate to
carry out construction tasks that are difcult to do during winter
because of the rigorous weather.
The lessons learned from the cases studied in this paper may
be considered from two different perspectives, i.e. construction
aspects and models of analysis. At present, the construction of
tanks in Patagonia follows API recommendations, in which the use
of tack welding is allowed before continuous welding is
completed:
Shell plates may be aligned by metal clips attached to the
bottom plates, and the shell may be tack welded to the bottom before
continuous welding is started between the bottom edge of the shell
plate and the bottom plates. (API 650, Section 5.2.2.3) [3].
However, it was found that in both cases reported in this
paper, the continuous welding between the shell and the
bottom plate had not been completed even at the stage of
nishing the construction of the complete cylinder. The construction team should not take critical strengthening decisions in the
presence of large amplitude vibrations, so that such situations
should be avoided. Our main conclusion is that continuous
welding between the base plate and the rst course should be
completed before other courses are added on top; this would
provide a much higher stiffness to the shell and the wind
speeds required to buckle the shell would be within acceptable
levels.
Regarding the structural analysis of the tank, it is recommended that models should be considered to account for the
construction stages, thus assuring that the structure is stable
before it is completed and with the roof set in place. The models
should carefully follow the construction stages, so as to provide
temporary buckling strength for the stages in which the nal
conguration has not been completed.

Fig. 10. Tank at Rincon de los Sauces, deected shape at buckling.

Continuous support
200

Failed tack welds

180

Design Velocity

V[ km/h ]

160
140
120
100
80
60
40
600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

Acknowledgments

Z
Fig. 11. Wind velocities that produce collapse mechanisms, under the conditions
studied in this paper.

continuous support, and lmax =0.15 kN/m2 (V=58 Km/h) for the
detached joint at the base with b=5.5 m.
The results of this investigation have been summarized in
Fig. 11 in terms of the Batdorf parameter (Z), given by:
L p2
1n
Z
rt
2

where L is the length of the cylinder, r is the radius, t is the

thickness, n is Poissons coefcient. The tank at General Roca has
Z =726, the tank at Rincon de los Sauces has Z= 1655, while the
third tank has an intermediate value Z= 1099. Two curves are
shown in this gure: one that is based on a scenario with tack
welds that fail along a signicant part of the perimeter, and a
second curve assuming that welding at the base was completed
before construction continued at higher levels. As a reference
value, the gure also shows the design wind speed for that part of
Patagonia, which is V= 158 Km/h.

6. Conclusions
The collapses under similar conditions are not limited to the
two cases illustrated in this paper, but they tend to be outside

This work was supported by grants from Universidad Nacional

del Comahue and Universidad Nacional de Cordoba.
References
[1] ABAQUS, Users Manuals, Version 6.3, Hibbitt, Karlsson and Sorensen, Inc.
Rhode Island, 2002.
[2] ASCE-7-02, Minimun Design Loads for Building and other Structures, ASCE,
Reston, VA, 2002.
[3] API Standard 650. Welded Steel Tanks for Oil Storage. Washington, D.C.:
American Petroleum Institute; 1988.
[4] Flores FG, Godoy LA. Instability of shells of revolution using ALREF:
studies for wind loaded shells. In: Buckling Of Shells Structures,
On Land, In The Sea And In The Air. Oxford: Elsevier Applied Science;
1991. p. 21322.
[5] Flores FG, Godoy LA. Buckling of short tanks due to hurricanes. Journal of
Engineering Structures 1998;20(8):75260.
[6] Flores FG, Godoy LA. Forced vibrations of silos leading to buckling. Journal of
Sound and Vibration 1999;224(3):43154.
[7] Godoy LA, Flores FG. Imperfection-sensitivity to elastic buckling of wind
loaded open cylindrical tanks. Journal of Structural Engineering and
Mechanics 2002;13(5):53342.
[8] Greiner R, Derler P. Effect of imperfections on wind-loaded cylindrical shells.
Thin Walled Structures 1995;23:27181.
[9] Jaca RC, Godoy LA, Flores FG. Analisis poscrtico de tanques de pared delgada
bajo cargas de viento. Mecanica Computacional 2002;21:184261.

[10] Lassig
JL, Cogliati MG, Bastanky MA, Palese C. Wind characteristics in
Neuquen, North Patagonia, Argentina. Journal of Wind Engineering and
Industrial Aerodynamics 1999;79:18399.
[11] Noon RK. Forensic Engineering Investigation. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press;
2001.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.C. Jaca, L.A. Godoy / Thin-Walled Structures 48 (2010) 453459

[12] Rish RF. Forces in cylindrical shells due to wind. Proceedings of the
Institution of Civil Engineers 1967;36:791803.
[13] Schmidt H, Binder B, Lange H. Postbuckling strength design of open thinwalled cylindrical tanks under wind load. Thin-Walled Structures 1998;31:
20320.

459

[14] Sosa EM, Godoy LA. Non-linear dynamics of above-ground thin-walled

tanks under uctuating pressures. Journal of Sound and Vibration 2005;283:
20115.
[15] Virella JC, Godoy LA, Suarez LE. Inuence of the roof on the natural periods of
empty steel tanks. Engineering Structures 2003;25:87787.