EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE OF LIQUID STORAGE TANKS, ACCOUNTING FOR ROCKING EXCITATION, CAUSED BY BASININDUCED SURFACE WAVES

Abstract eng:
Liquid storage tanks are important components of industrial facilities and liquid fuel lifeline transmission and distribution systems. Failure of such structures (such as the ones which occurred during the 2003 MW 8.3 Tokachi-oki, Japan, earthquake, at a distance of over 200 km from the causative earthquake source) may cripple the system of which they are a part. In the past, virtually all aspects of the behavior of liquidstorage tanks have been investigated, including soil-structure interaction effects (e.g., the work of Veletsos and co-workers). However, the effects of rocking excitation of such structures, in unison to horizontal excitations, have not been investigated. The main thesis of the present work is that long period rocking excitations, associated with Rayleigh waves, have significant effects on the response of liquid storage tanks. Such rocking excitations are expected to affect significantly the convective component of the liquid storage tank response which also is characterized by long periods. Particularly strong Rayleigh waves may be induced by the presence of sedimentary basins when such deposits are excited by earthquake events with thrust (or normal) faulting mechanism (e.g., MW 6.55 1971 San Fernando, California, earthquake; MW 6.2 Chi-Chi aftershock, Taiwan). The results of our investigation demonstrate that rocking excitation, in particular caused by Rayleigh waves, contributes significantly to the total response of liquid storage tanks. Key parameters of the problem, besides the fundamental period of the liquid-tank system, are (1) the fundamental period of the sedimentary deposits as well as (2) the phase (and group) velocity of the Rayleigh waves in the same range of periods.

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