Stress within a cohesionless granular fill in a storage vessel with sloping walls during initial static loading

Prediction of stress distribution within a granular fill in a storage vessel is of great importance to a wide cross section of industries. This problem has been discussed in the past for storage vessels with vertical walls. This paper presents a general expression for the active stress coefficient, defined as a ratio of normal stress acting on the wall to vertical stress within the granular fill, during initial static loading in a storage vessel with sloping walls. The derivation presented is based on an improved concept of arching in granular materials and sound theoretical principles, and gives due consideration to wall friction and slope inclination. This is a significant contribution to the current state-of-the-art for determination of stresses within granular materials, and paves the way to further developments. Several special cases of the general expression have been presented for practical applications. It is clearly shown that the loading on the wall can increase substantially with the inclination of the wall. Any attempt to estimate the loadings without due considerations to the inclination can lead to unsafe designs.