Experimental Analysis of Cylindrical Steel Tank Liquid Storage With Fixed Base and Isolation Base

Abstract eng:
Tanks for hazardous liquid storage have proved to be vulnerable when destructive earthquakes appear. Their collapse leads to the spillage of the contained substances (flammable, explosive, toxic) negatively impacting in the surrounding environment and causing big economic losses for the region where they are located. This work`s goal is to determine the effectiveness of the systems of seismic isolation in supported cylindrical tanks, which store hazardous liquids, and to measure the incidence of certain parameters over the response. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to perform a parametric analysis of the response history, with multiple runs and with a high computational cost. Due to that, a simple and fast method, based on the resolution of the problem through an Euler-Lagrange Equation is proposed in this article. As isolation devices, friction isolators of single friction pendulum were used. As an input, earthquakes with both vibratory and impulsive seismic movement characteristics were used. Both a base fixed and a base isolated tank were modeled, and as study parameters, the slenderness ratio of the tank and the period and the friction coefficient of the seismic isolation system were modeled. The seismic responses in terms of displacements of the free surface of the contained liquid, displacements of the isolation system and the normalized base shear were determined. The results state that the isolation system reduces the maximum response in all cases, but it increases its effectiveness as the tank slenderness ratio increases. The slender tanks are shown to be very sensitive to the system isolation period, while the thick tanks are strongly conditioned in its response by the friction coefficient.

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