Numerical Stress Analysis of Orthogonally Intersecting Cylindrical Shells Interacting with Soil Considering Stages of Construction

The objects of research are orthogonally intersecting cylindrical shells and the surrounding soil. A numerical stress analysis of the shells has been conducted the effect of taking into account the stages of construction has been evaluated. The analysis was performed in ANSYS Mechanical software. The joint of orthogonally intersecting cylindrical shells is located at a depth of 30 m from the ground surface. The dimensions of the soil body are selected from the condition of stress release and are adopted as 5 diameters of the larger shell to the left and to the right of it. The problem takes into account the physical and contact nonlinearities. Contact nonlinearity is associated with the interaction of the joint of the orthogonally intersecting cylindrical shells and the soil body in the process of deformation and as a result of shell element activation at calculation stages. The contact between the bodies is modelled using contact pairs. The cases of 8, 4, 2 and 1 stages of the construction of the T-connection were designed (in each case an additional stage (zeroth) was allocated for determining the initial state of the soil). The case without taking into account the construction stages was also considered. The results showed that the stage analysis leads to significant changes in the values of the von Mises stresses in the T-connection compared to the case without taking into account construction stages. The potential for further research is associated with the use of nonlinear materials for the shell and various alternatives for the contact interaction of the shell and the soil.