Comparative study of semi-active damper systems for liquid storage tanks

Abstract

This paper offers the seismic response of base-isolated Liquid storage tanks with using of semi-active control systems to increase the overall performance of liquid storage tank against earthquake. The laminated rubber bearing kind of isolation system is used and it is placed between the ground and basis of tank which reduce the design seismic force significantly. The quite a number of semi-active damper structures considered are the magnetorheological damper (MR) and semi-active hydraulic damper (SHD). The instantaneous optimal controller is used to control the semi-active dampers which regularly give instruction to the dampers to generate forces. Simulation is carried out for uncontrolled and controlled system and state space approach is used which is modern time domain approach to solve the dynamic equation. The structure responses such as displacement for controlled and uncontrolled cases are evaluated for previous five earthquake ground motion. The results confirmed that the semi-active control strategy using instantaneous optimal controller is effective in lowering the structural response as compared to uncontrolled system. Both the magnetorheological and semi-active hydraulic damper are considered effective in reducing the displacements. But the reduction is notably greater for the base-isolated tank with MR damper.