Estudo e análise de fundação destinada à silos metálicos de fundo plano para armazenagem de grãos em Uberlândia

Abstract

In a country with high agricultural production capacity, grain storage units, especially flat bottomed metal silos, are increasingly in demand within the structure market. However, in Brazil, there is still no methodology and regulations for the construction of support structures for silos, that is, foundations. Thus, in the present work, we analyze the carrying capacity and total displacements using semi-empirical and finite element method (FEM) in the RS2 software. To receive one of the largest flat-bottomed metal silos in Brazil today (SL 120), four different situations were considered: direct foundation (Case A), pile foundation in group of piles (Case B), pile foundation with consideration of contact with the ground (Case C) and real foundation with slab and piled ring (Case D). From the analysis and results obtained, it was found that a shallow foundation, for soils with low resistance and high loads, is an unfeasible solution. The results obtained by comparing Cases B and C, distanced that, for the consideration of the block ground contact in a staked radius, there is an increase in the load capacity of the block, at the same time, a system efficiency is reduced. After the numerical analysis of Cases C and D in FEM, it was understood that the differential settlements are smaller for piled rafts (137 piles with a diameter of 50 cm and a length of 32 meters) compared to a piled ring foundation (64 piles with a diameter of 60 cm and a length of 40 meters), since the increase in piles provides greater rigidity in the foundation structure.