Fluid-structure-soil interaction analysis of cylindrical liquid storage tanks subjected to horizontal earthquake loading

Abstract

This paper presents a method of seismic analysis for a cylindrical liquid storage structure considering the effects of the interior fluid and exterior soil medium in the frequency domain. The horizontal and rocking motions of the structure are included in this study. The fluid motion is expressed in terms of analytical velocity potential functions, which can be obtained by solving the boundary value problem including the deformed configuration of the structure as well as the sloshing behavior of the fluid. The effect of the fluid is included in the equation of motion as the impulsive added mass and the frequency-dependent convective added mass along the nodes on the wetted boundary of the structure. The structure and the near-field soil medium are represented using the axisymmetric finite elements, while the far-field soil is modeled using dynamic infinite elements. The present method can be applied to the structure embedded in ground as well as on ground, since it models both the soil medium and the structure directly. For the purpose of verification, earthquake response analyses are performed on several cases of liquid tanks on a rigid ground and on a homogeneous elastic half-space. Comparison of the present results with those by other methods shows good agreement. Finally, an application example of a reinforced concrete tank on a horizontally layered soil with a rigid bedrock is presented to demonstrate the importance of the soil-structure interaction effects in the seismic analysis for large liquid storage tanks.