Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Shahrokh Parvar ¹
• Mehran Seyed Razzaghi ²
• Armin Aziminejad ³

¹ PhD Student Department of Civil Engineering, Qc., Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran

² Assistant Professor Department of Civil Engineering, Qc., Islamic Azad University, Qazvin, Iran

³ Assistant Professor Department of Civil Engineering, SR., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Steel cylindrical storage tanks are among the critical infrastructures for liquid storage and are vulnerable to severe environmental forces, such as tsunamis. The integrity of these tanks is essential to prevent catastrophic failures, leakages, and environmental damage when exposed to tsunami events. This study analyzes the buckling behavior of an anchored, open-top service tank subjected to tsunami-induced hydrodynamic pressure. The objective of this study was to investigate how the addition of stiffening rings to the tank shell can enhance its stability. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was employed to simulate the tsunami bore flow in order to determine the pressure distribution around the tank. The obtained pressure distribution was then used in linear buckling analysis (LBA) and geometric nonlinear analysis including imperfections (GNIA) to compute the buckling pressure. The present study revealed that the shape of the stiffener, do not play a significant role in the buckling behavior of tanks. Placing stiffening rings at a distance greater than twice the bore depth does not improve the buckling resistance of the tank. Nevertheless, stiffener placement in the bottom parts of the tank’s shell may lead to notable enhancement in the buckling capacity. The most optimal configuration occurs when the stiffeners are positioned approximately at half the bore depth above the tank base. Adding stiffeners can increase the buckling resistance of the tank by more than 70%.

Keywords

• Aboveground Tank
• Buckling
• Stiffening Rings
• Tsunami
• Computational Fluid Dynamics

Main Subjects

• Earthquake