Multi-hazard coupling vulnerability analysis for buckling failure of vertical storage tank: Floods and hurricanes

Abstract

As one of the typical multi-hazard natural disasters, floods and hurricanes have caused destructive damage to the process equipment, especially vertical storage tanks, leading to a large number of severe technological accidents in chemical industrial parks. In the present study, aiming at the buckling behavior under the coupling effect of floods and hurricanes, the wind load, flood load, and wave load are analyzed, and the limit state equation of storage tank buckling failure under the coupling effect of floods and hurricanes is established. Then, the load distribution on the tank wall is verified by FLUENT software and the rationality of FLUENT simulation is shown by laboratory experiments of vertical storage tanks. The fragility curves and surfaces are plotted by Monte Carlo Simulation under different wind speeds, considering the effects of flood velocity, flood inundation height, and liquid filling level. The results show that with the increase of wind speed, the influence of flood inundation height on the vulnerability of storage tanks gradually increases, while the influence of flood velocity and filling level on the vulnerability of storage tanks gradually decreases. Flood inundation height is the main disaster parameter affecting the vulnerability of storage tanks. Compared with the case of floods or hurricanes alone, the buckling failure probability of storage tanks under the coupling effects of floods and hurricanes increases by 17.67% and 80.50%, respectively. Moreover, the damaging effect of the coupling of floods and hurricanes is greater than that of the direct superposition effect, and the failure probability increases by 17.57%. The research aims to analyze the failure mechanism of vertical storage tanks, accident prevention, and control under the coupling effects of multiple hazards.