Investigation of seismic behavior of fluid–rectangular tank–soil/foundation systems in frequency domain

Abstract

Main purpose of this study is to evaluate the dynamic behavior of fluid–rectangular tank–soil/foundation system with a simple and fast seismic analysis procedure. In this procedure, interaction effects are presented by Housner's two mass approximations for fluid and the cone model for soil/foundation system. This approach can determine; displacement at the height of the impulsive mass, the sloshing displacement and base forces for the soil/foundation system conditions including embedment and incompressible soil cases. Models and equations for proposed method were briefly explained for different tank–soil/foundation system combinations. By means of changing soil/foundation conditions, some comparisons are made on base forces and sloshing responses for the cases of embedment and no embedment. The results showed that the displacements and base shear forces generally decreased, with decreasing soil stiffness. However, embedment, wall flexibility, and soil–structure interaction (SSI) did not considerably affect the sloshing displacement.