Earthquake Protection of Liquid Storage Tanks by Sliding Isolation Bearings

Author(s):  
Eren Uckan ◽  
Bulent Akbas ◽  
Fabrizio Paolacci ◽  
Jashue Shen ◽  
Emre Abalı

Liquid storage tanks are critical components of industrial facilities since damage to such structures may cause spreading of hazardous material and environmental pollution. Tanks exhibit mainly two different seismic behaviors one of which is the long period movements due to sloshing of the liquid and the other is the impulsive vibrations generated as a result of the fluid structure interaction phenomena at higher frequencies. The overall base shear is the combination of these two loads. The seismic base isolation aims to control the impulsive load as it has appreciable amount of contribution to the base shear values. Among various types, the curved surface sliding bearings (FPS) are commonly used in liquid tanks since provide isolation periods which is independent of the tank weight (liquid height). In this paper a parametric analysis has been performed to investigate the efficiency of FPS bearings. The numerical model is based on the Haroun and Housner’s simplified lumped parameter model in which the sloshing and fluid-tank interactions are modeled by convective and impulsive masses, respectively. The effectiveness of the isolation system was investigated under a series of ground motions, isolation periods and tank aspect (slenderness) ratios. Results indicated that depending on the characteristics of the ground motion, the response of the isolated tank can be reduced in appreciable amounts as compared to the conventionally constructed one. On the other hand, some detrimental effects were also observed in lower isolation periods (Tb=2s) particularly in medium slender tanks under near fault ground motions. This undesirable situation was avoided by using higher isolation periods (Tb =3s) without much affecting the bearing displacements.

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (24) ◽  
pp. 5747-5764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sina Safari ◽  
Reza Tarinejad

Seismic response of base isolated steel liquid storage tanks is investigated in this study by a stochastic approach in frequency domain. For the purpose of evaluating different frequency contents of seismic events on the responses of fixed and isolated tanks, the earthquake excitation is characterized by power spectral density function. Since earthquake is a random process, stochastic seismic analysis is used and root mean square response predicts behavior of system properly. Two types of isolation system are assumed and nonlinear behavior of base isolation systems are developed by an iterative statistical linearization scheme. The study demonstrates the influence of each characteristic parameter of the storage tanks and isolation system and also excitation features. It is confirmed that near-fault earthquake excitations amplify the overall response of the system. Base isolation is known as an effective technique to reduce responses appropriately. It is demonstrated that the sloshing responses of the tanks is significantly reduced by sliding bearing. Further, excitation parameters, PGV/PGA ratio of records and pulse period in near-fault ground motions, that represent differences in two sets of earthquakes are defined to recognize variation of responses.


2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (7) ◽  
pp. 1264-1282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saman Bagheri ◽  
Mostafa Farajian

There are several methods to reduce the seismic damages in liquid storage tanks. One of these methods is to use passive control devices, in particular seismic base isolators. Among the different base isolation systems, the Friction Pendulum System (FPS) whose period does not depend on the weight of the system is more appropriate for isolation of liquid storage tanks. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of peak ground acceleration (PGA) and pulselike characteristics of earthquakes on the seismic behavior of steel liquid storage tanks base isolated by FPS bearings. In addition, impact effects of the slider with the side retainer are investigated, as well as effects of tank aspect ratio, isolation period and friction coefficient. The obtained results of tanks with different aspect ratios indicate that the responses get more reduced due to isolation under far-field ground motions compared to near-fault ground motions. It is also seen that the response of a base isolated tank is affected when contact takes place with the side retainer of the FPS.


2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1201-1218 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. K. Shrimali ◽  
R. S. Jangid

We investigate the seismic response of liquid storage tanks isolated by lead-rubber bearings. The force-deformation behavior of the bearings is considered as bi-linear modeled by the Wen equation. The continuous liquid mass of the tank is modeled as a sloshing mass, impulsive mass and rigid mass. The corresponding stiffness associated with these masses has been worked out depending upon the properties of the tank wall and liquid mass. The governing equations of motion of the three-degrees-of-freedom model of the isolated liquid storage tank are derived. Since the force-deformation behavior of the bearings is non-linear, as a result, the seismic response is obtained using the Newmark step-by-step method under several recorded earthquake ground motions. The responses of two types of tanks, namely slender and broad, are compared with the corresponding response without an isolation system in order to investigate the effectiveness of the isolation system. A parametric study is also carried out to study the effects of important system parameters on the effectiveness of seismic isolation for liquid storage tanks. The various important parameters considered are the aspect ratio of the tank, period, damping and the yield strength of the isolation system. It has been observed that the seismic isolation of the tanks is quite effective and the response of isolated liquid storage tanks is significantly influenced by the above system parameters. There is an optimum value of isolation damping for which the base shear in the tank attains the minimum value. Therefore, increasing the bearing damping beyond a certain value decreases the bearing and sloshing displacements but it increases the base shear.


2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 675-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aruna Rawat ◽  
Naseef Ummer ◽  
Vasant Matsagar

Rolling base isolation system provides effective isolation to the structures from seismic base excitations by virtue of its low frictional resistance. Herein, dynamic analysis of flexible-shear type multi-storey building mounted on orthogonally placed elliptical rolling rod base isolation systems subjected to bi-directional components of near-fault earthquake ground motions is presented. The orthogonally placed rods would make it possible to resist the earthquake forces induced in the structure in both the horizontal directions. The curved surface of these elliptical rods has a self-restoring capability due to which the magnitude of peak isolator displacement and residual displacement is reduced. The roughness of the tempered curved surface of the rollers dissipates energy in motion due to frictional damping. The seismic performance of the multi-storey building mounted on the elliptical rolling rod base isolation system is compared with that mounted on the sliding pure-friction and cylindrical rolling rod systems. Parametric studies are conducted to examine the behavior of the building for different superstructure flexibilities, eccentricities of the elliptical rod, and coefficients of friction. It is concluded that the elliptical rolling rod base isolation system is effective in mitigation of damaging effects of the near-fault earthquake ground motions in the multi-storey buildings. Even under the near-fault earthquake ground motions, the base-isolated building mounted on the elliptical rolling rods shows considerable reduction in seismic response. The isolator displacement with the elliptical rolling rod base isolation system is less in comparison to the pure-friction and cylindrical rolling rod systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandros Tsipianitis ◽  
Yiannis Tsompanakis

Liquid-filled tanks are effective storage infrastructure for water, oil, and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Many such large-scale tanks are located in regions with high seismicity. Therefore, very frequently base isolation technology has to be adopted to reduce the dynamic distress of storage tanks, preventing the structure from typical modes of failure, such as elephant-foot buckling, diamond-shaped buckling, and roof damage caused by liquid sloshing. The cost-effective seismic design of base-isolated liquid storage tanks can be achieved by adopting performance-based design (PBD) principles. In this work, the focus is given on sliding-based systems, namely, single friction pendulum bearings (SFPBs), triple friction pendulum bearings (TFPBs), and mainly on the recently developed quintuple friction pendulum bearings (QFPBs). More specifically, the study is focused on the fragility analysis of tanks isolated by sliding-bearings, emphasizing on isolators’ displacements due to near-fault earthquakes. In addition, a surrogate model has been developed for simulating the dynamic response of the superstructure (tank and liquid content) to achieve an optimal balance between computational efficiency and accuracy.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (06) ◽  
pp. 1201-1228 ◽  
Author(s):  
AJAY SHARMA ◽  
R. S. JANGID

The influence of high initial isolator stiffness on the response of a base-isolated benchmark building is investigated. The base-isolated building is modeled as a three-dimensional linear-elastic structure having three degrees-of-freedom at each floor level. The time-history analysis of this building is carried out by solving the governing equations of motion using Newmark-beta method along with an iterative predictor–corrector approach. The force–deformation behavior of the isolation system is modeled by a bilinear law, which can be effectively used to model all isolation systems in practice. Three near-field earthquakes with bidirectional ground motions are considered. Structural response parameters such as absolute top floor acceleration, base shear, and base displacement are chosen for investigating the effects of high initial isolator stiffness. It was observed that the high initial isolator stiffness of the isolation system excites the higher modes in the base-isolated building and increases the top floor acceleration. Such a phenomenon can be detrimental to the sensitive instruments placed in the isolated structure. On the other hand, both the base displacement and base shear reduce marginally due to increase in the initial isolator stiffness. Further, the influences of high initial isolator stiffness are found to dependent on the period and characteristic strengths of the base isolation system.


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