Finite Element Simulation of Impact on RCC Water Tank

Abstract

Finite element simulation of the impact analysis of circular and rectangular water tanks subjected to projectile impact has been carried out using ANSYS Explicit Dynamics 15.0. Analyses were performed by considering both with water and without water for circular and rectangular water tanks. The different impact velocities considered in the present study were 50, 100, 200 and 400 kmph. The water tank is considered to be fixed at slab base. Due to the limitation on the maximum number of nodes in the academic version of ANSYS, finite element modelling of water tank has been carried out on a water tank of reduced capacity of 4400 L. The reduced tank has a height of 1.40 m and diameter as 2 m. The size of meshing is taken as 100 mm, and thickness of the base slab considered is 150 mm. Salient results such as total deformation, principal stresses, equivalent stresses, normal stresses and the directional deformation for both circular and rectangular tanks with water and without water cases for the different velocities were obtained. The comparison of the various results for the different cases was detailed. It is observed that with the use of finite element simulation, one can come to an optimized shape of the tank with least amount of internal stresses developed within.