CHAPTER 6: SILOS - A CASE STUDY

Silos are warehouses equipped for receiving and unloading incoherent materials, usually cereals. The shape is determined by their function, so they are generally composed by slender cylinders, adjacent to each other, and with the bottom provided with inclined surface and a central hole, aimed to unload materials on the trucks below. In several European countries, mostly in the Mediterranean area, many of these buildings date from the post-war period, so that they need accurate studies in order to determine their reliability and, eventually, to design interventions for their rehabilitation. In the present chapter the studies conducted on a r.c. silo in central Italy is presented; the properties of materials, the theoretic basis of design and the techniques typical of the time have been accurately retrieved and employed for assessing the actual state of the structure.