What We Need To Know About Lipp Steel Silo

Lipp steel silo is a new type of silo. It has the advantages of convenient construction, modern appearance, good air tightness and wide applicability. With the user's gradually in-depth understanding of Lipp steel silo in practice, it has been widely used in various fields, and the market share has become increasingly high.
The manufacture of Lipp steel silo mainly depends on the special equipment SM unit. The diameter of silos manufactured by the unit is ranged from 3.5 to 18 meters. For grain transfer storehouses and raw material silos of various processing plants, the diameter of Lipper steel silos could be 8 meters, 10 meters or 12 meters, and their height should not exceed 23 meters. In addition, the capacity, quantity and planar combination form of Lipper steel silo should be determined according to some comprehensive factors such as technological requirements, site conditions, engineering geology, technical and economic comparison, etc. Under normal conditions, we will adopt a single row arrangement or multi-row arrangement. In order to meet the installation requirements, the net distance between silos is generally 80 cm, and the minimum distance is not less than 50 cm.

The flat bottom, semi-cone bottom and cone bottom are three common bottom forms of Lipp steel silo. The structure of the flat-bottomed silo is suitable for the situation of low groundwater level and high bearing capacity of the upper soil layer. Its silo wall is usually fixed directly on the foundation plate. The surface of the base plate should be higher than 30 centimeters above the outdoor ground to prevent water from entering the bottom of the silo and affecting the safety of the storage materials. In addition, we need to set up an unloading trench under the foundation plate for discharging materials. Because the bottom of the silo is the base plate, it can greatly reduce the cost of construction. At the same time, it provides the most convenient conditions for installation and operation of equipment. What’s more, due to the low center of gravity for the material storage, it is beneficial to the earthquake prevention of the silo body.
When the bottom of the silo is a semi-cone, we should adopt the gravity discharging mode. And we can choose the base plate as the bottom plate of the silo, or build an overhead silo bottom and then set up the bottom plate separately. In general, we need to build the silo depend on the specific situation. When the silo bottom is designed as a conical bottom, the gravity discharging is also required. However, the overhead silo bottom is suitable for the situation of high groundwater level and difficult waterproofing treatment of underground pits. This kind of Lipp steel silo is difficult to construct and the cost of construction will increase accordingly.
When it is necessary to adopt the overhead type of silo bottom, the supporting structure under the silo can be selected as reinforced concrete silo wall support, column support, or the mutual support by silo wall and inner column. Its selection should be determined according to the type of silo bottom, basic category, technological requirements and comprehensive economic analysis.

In order to fix the Lipper steel silo firmly on the base plate or foundation, a certain number of embedded parts should be installed along the periphery of the silo. The number and spacing of these embedded parts should be determined according to the most disadvantageous situation of empty silo under wind load action. Usually, the size of the embedded parts is 200 x 250 mm, the thickness is between 10 to12 mm, and the spacing is between 800 to 1000 mm. In addition, we can also adopt other connection methods such as embedded bolts.

The top of Lipp steel silo is assembled by a fan-shaped galvanized steel sheet processed in the factory and a radial reinforced skeleton. There are some sealing strips arranged along the upper edge of the silo wall to make it closely connected with the top of the silo to ensure the water impermeability and good air tightness. However, the Lipp steel silo is not suitable for the long-term storage of grain, so there is no temperature measuring cable device in the silo. But if temperature measuring cables must be installed, its load should be considered in the design of the silo top structure.

The silo bottom discharging outlet usually adopt the conical bucket shape, and it should be located at the center of the steel silo to form the center discharging, so as to avoid the silo collapse accident caused by the eccentric discharging. When the semi-steel bucket and all-steel bucket are used for discharging material at the silo bottom, in order to meet the construction requirements, we can temporarily fill the steel bucket with sand and other materials, and make a temporary operation platform on its surface to facilitate the installation and operation of SM units. The steel funnel is usually made of steel plates of 6-8 mm thickness, which will be shipped to the site for installation after the factory manufacturing is completed, or manufactured and installed on site.