Abstract: With the development of petrochemical equipment towards large scale and lightweight, the operating conditions of towers are becoming more and more complicated. The stress distribution is different at the connection between the skirt and the bottom of the tower under different types of loads. Therefore, how to choose the connection type correctly in the design has become the main concern for designers. In this paper, the finite element method is adopted to study the different connection types between the skirt and the tower, explore the characteristics of stress distribution and displacement under different types of loads and investigate the effects of different alignment to the connection. This provides reference for the design of vessels with skirt support.

Key words: tower, skirt, connection type, finite element method/FEM, fatigue analysis