Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606

Volume 2, No.8, August 2013

_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 23


Seismic Behavior of RC Elevated Water Tankunder
Different Types of Staging Pattern

Pavan .S. Ekbote, P.G. Student, Civil Engineering Department, Government Engineering College, Haveri,
Karnataka, India
Dr. Jagadish .G. Kori, Prof. & Head of Civil Engineering Department, Government Engineering College, Haveri,
Karnataka, India
ABSTRACT
As known from very upsetting experiences, elevated water tanks were heavily damages or collapsed during
earthquake. This was might be due to the lack of knowledge regarding the proper behaviour of supporting system of
the tank again dynamic effect and also due to improper geometrical selection of staging patterns. Due to the fluid-
structure interactions, the seismic behaviour of elevated tanks has the characteristics of complex phenomena. The
main aim of this study is to understand the behaviour of supporting system which is more effective under different
response spectrum method with SAP 2000 software. In this Paper different supporting systems such as radial
bracing and cross bracing.

Introduction
Water is human basic needs for daily life. Sufficient
water distribution depends on design of a water tank
in certain area. An elevated water tank is a large
water storage container constructed for the purpose of
holding water supply at certain height to
pressurization the water distribution system. Many
new ideas and innovation has been made for the
storage of water and other liquid materials in
different forms and fashions. There are many
different ways for the storage of liquid such as
underground, ground supported, elevated etc. Liquid
storage tanks are used extensively by municipalities
and industries for storing water, inflammable liquids
and other chemicals. Thus Water tanks are very
important for public utility and for industrial
structure.

Elevated water tanks consist of huge water mass at
the top of a slender staging which are most critical
consideration for the failure of the tank during
earthquakes. Elevated water tanks are critical and
strategic structures and damage of these structures
during earthquakes may endanger drinking water
supply, cause to fail in preventing large fires and
substantial economical loss. Since, the elevated tanks
are frequently used in seismic active regions also
hence, seismic behaviour of them has to be
investigated in detail. Due to the lack of Knowledge
of supporting system some of the water tank were
collapsed or heavily damages. So there is need to
focus on seismic safety of lifeline structure using


with respect to alternate supporting system which are
safe during earthquake and also take more design
forces.

The present study is an effort to identify the
behaviour of elevated water tank under Response
Spectrum Method with consideration and modelling
of impulsive and convective water masses inside the
container for different fluid conditions, types of
bracings and bracing levels using structural software
SAP2000.

Model Provisions
Two mass model for elevated tank was proposed by
Housner (1963) which is more appropriate and is
being commonly used in most of the international
codes including Draft code for IS 1893 (Part-II). The
pressure generated within the fluid due to the
dynamic motion of the tank can be separated into
impulsive and convective parts. When a tank
containing liquid with a free surface is subjected to
horizontal earthquake ground motion, tank wall and
liquid are subjected to horizontal acceleration. The
liquid in the lower region of tank behaves like a mass
that is rigidly connected to tank wall. This mass is
termed as impulsive liquid mass which accelerates
along with the wall and induces impulsive
hydrodynamic pressure on tank wall and similarly on
base Liquid mass in the upper region of tank
undergoes sloshing motion. This mass is termed as
convective liquid mass and it exerts convective
hydrodynamic pressure on tank wall and base. For
representing these two masses and in order to include
the effect of their hydrodynamic pressure in analysis,
spring mass model is adopted for ground-supported
tanks and two-mass model for elevated tanks.
Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 24



Fig 1.1: Two mass model for elevated tank

In spring mass model convective mass (mc) is
attached to the tank wall by the spring having
stiffness (Kc), where a impulsive mass (mi) is rigidly
attached to tank wall. For elevated tanks two-mass
model is considered, which consists of two degrees of
freedom system. Spring mass model can also be
applied on elevated tanks, but two-mass model
idealization is closer to reality. The two- mass model
is shown in Fig 1.1(a). where, mi, mc, Kc, hi, hc, hs,
etc. are the parameters of spring mass model and
charts as well as empirical formulae are given for
finding their values. The parameters of this model
depend on geometry of the tank and its flexibility.
For elevated tanks, if the shape is other than circular
or rectangular, then the values of spring mass
parameters can be obtained by considering an
equivalent circular tank having same capacity with
diameter equal to that of diameter at top level of
liquid in original tank. The two-mass model was first
proposed by G. M. Housner (1963) and is being
commonly used in most of the international codes.
The response of the two degree of freedom system
can be obtained by elementary structural dynamics.
However, for most of elevated tanks it is observed
that both the time periods are well separated. Hence,
the two mass idealizations can be treated as two
uncoupled single degree of freedom system as shown
in Fig.1.1 (b). The stiffness (Ks) is lateral stiffness of
staging. The mass (ms) is the structural mass and
shall comprise of mass of tank container and one-
third mass of staging as staging will acts like a lateral
spring. Mass of container comprises of roof slab,
container wall, gallery if any, floor slab, floor beams,
ring beam, circular girder, and domes if provided.

Fluid-Structure Interaction
The analysis of elevated tank under seismic load of
Fluid- structure-interaction problems can be
investigated by using different approaches such as
added mass Westergaard or velocity potential,
Lagrangian (Wilson and Khalvati), Eulerian
(Zienkiewicz and Bettes), and Lagrangian Euclidian
approach (Donea). These analyses can be carried out
using FEM or by the analytical methods. The added
mass approach as shown in Fig.1.2 can be
investigated by using some of conventional FEM
software such as SAP2000, STAAD Pro and LUSAS.
Whilst in the other approaches, the analysis needs
special programs that include fluid elements in the
elements library, such as ANSYS, ABAQUS
ADINA, ALGOR and etc.

The general equation of motion for a system
subjected to an earthquake excitation can be written
as,
M

+ C + Ku= -M
g ..
1.1


In which M, C and K are mass, damping and stiffness
matrices with , and u are the acceleration,
velocity and displacement respectively, and is the
ground acceleration. In the case of added mass
approach the form of equation 1.1 become as below.

M
*
+ C + Ku= -M
*
g
1.2

In which M* is the new mass matrix after adding
hydrodynamic mass to the structural mass, while the
damping and stiffness matrices are same as in
equation 1.1


Fig 1.2: FEM Fluid-Structure-Interaction Model

Westergaard Models method was originally
developed for the dams but it can be applied to other
hydraulic structure, under earthquake loads i.e. tank.
In this paper the impulsive mass has been obtained
according to GSDMA guideline equations and is
added to the tanks walls according to Westergaard
Approach as shown in Figure 1.3 using equation 1.3.
Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 25

Where, is the mass density, h is the depth of water
and Ai is the area of curvilinear surface.


Fig 1.3: (a) Westergaard added mass concept (b) Normal and
Cartesian directions.

m
ai
=[ ]A
i
1.3

In the case of Intze tank where the walls having
sloped and curved contact surface, the equation 1.3
should be compatible with the tank shape by
assuming the pressure is still expressed by
Westergaard's original parabolic shape. But the fact
that the orientation of the pressure is normal to the
face of the structure and its magnitude is proportional
to the total normal acceleration at the recognized
point. In general, the orientation of pressures in a 3-D
surface varies from point to point; and if it is
expressed in Cartesian coordinate components, it
would produce added-mass terms associated with all
three orthogonal axes. Following this description the
generalized Westergaard added mass at any point i on
the face of a 3-D structure is expressed by the
equation 1.4
1.4

A
i
is the tributary area associated with node i,
i
is the
normal direction cosine(
2
y
,
2
x ,

2
z
) and a
i
is
Westergaard pressure coefficient.
Problem Description
An Intze shape water container of 250 m
3
capacity is
supported on RC staging of 6 columns with
horizontal bracings of 300 x 600 mm at three levels.
Details of staging configuration are shown in Figure
5. Staging conforms to ductile detailing as per IS
13920. Grade of concrete and steel are M20 and
Fe415, respectively. Tank is located on hard soil in
seismic zone IV. Density of concrete is 25 kN/m
3
. A
FEM structural software SAP 2000 is used to model
the elevated intze water tank as shown in Fig 5.
Columns and beams in the frame type support system
are modelled as frame elements (with six degrees of
freedom per node). Conical part, bottom and top
domes and container walls are modelled with thin
shell elements (with four nodes and six degrees of
freedom per node). Other dimensions of the elevated
tanks are illustrated in Table 1.

TABLE 1: STRUCTURAL DATA FOR FRAME TYPE
Capacity of the tank
250 m
3
Diameter of tank
8.6 m
Number of columns
6
Height of staging
16 m
Height of Cylindrical Wall
4.6 m
Rise of Top Dome
1.75 m
Rise of Bottom & Conical Dome
1.5 m
Number of Bracing Level
3, 4, 5
Top Dome
120 mm
Top Ring Beam
250 x 300
mm
Cylindrical Wall 200 mm
Bottom Ring Beam
500 x 300
mm
Circular Ring Beam
500 x 600
mm
Bottom Dome 200 mm
Conical Dome 250 mm
Braces
300 x 600
mm
Columns 650 mm

In the present study an alternate staging
configurations are those which can be achieved by
simple modifications to the Hexagonal Bracing Fig 2;
for instance by adding cross bracing Fig 3 and radical
bracing Fig 4 and levels of bracing as shown in Fig 6,
Fig 7, Fig 8.
Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 26





Fig 6: 3 Level Bracing Fig 7: 4 level Bracing Fig 8: 5 Level Bracing

Results
TABLE 2- BASE SHEAR FOR 3 LEVEL BRACING


Fluid
Level
Condition

BASE SHEAR (kN)

Bracing types

Hexagonal
Bracing

Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing

Hexagonal &
Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing

Empty

227.29

255.34

260.81

257.41

258.49

Half Full

276.14

306.38

315.78

311.98

313.13

Full

316.14

352.44

360.43

355.06

356.94
Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 27

TABLE 3- OVER-TURNING MOMENT FOR 3 LEVEL BRACING


Fluid
Level
Condition

OVER-TURNING MOMENT (kN-m)

Bracing types

Hexagonal
Bracing

Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing

Hexagonal &
Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing

Empty

3933.84

4320.02

4405.85

4351.24

4370.28

Half Full

4841.06

5231.85

5387.12

5325.28

5347.15

Full

5635.11

6136.79

6269.54

6179.97

6210.43


TABLE 4- MAXIMUM BENDING MOMENT AT THE BOTTOM OF COLUMN FOR 3 LEVEL BRACING


Fluid
Level
Condition

MAX BENDING MOMENT (kN-m)

Bracing types

Hexagonal
Bracing

Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing

Hexagonal &
Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing

Empty

115.69

122.84

119

123.65

118.23

Half Full

140.63

148.44

143.97

149.47

142.98

Full

160.91

169.80

164.22

170.74

163.26

TABLE 5- MAXIMUM STORY DISPLACEMENT FOR 3 LEVEL BRACING


Fluid
Level
Condition

MAX STORY DISPLACEMENT (mm)

Bracing types

Hexagonal
Bracing

Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing

Hexagonal &
Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing

Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing

Empty

15.693

15.419

15.251

15.336

15.318

Half Full

19.127

18.913

18.479

18.634

18.571

Full

21.942

21.366

21.175

21.287

21.238





















Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 28


Fig 9: Base Shear For 3 Level Bracing Fig 10: Over-Turning Moment For 3 Level Bracin








0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
B
a
a
s
e

S
h
e
a
r

(
k
N
)

Fluid Level Condition
Hexagonal
Bracing
Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing
Hexagonal &
Radical Bracing
Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing
Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
O
v
e
r
-
t
u
t
n
i
n
g

M
o
m
e
n
t

(
k
N
-
m
)

Fluid Level Condition
Hexagonal
Bracing
Hexagonal &
Cross Bracing
Hexagonal &
Radical Bracing
Hexagonal & Alt
Cross & Radical
Bracing
Hexagonal & Alt
Radical & Cross
Bracing
Journal of Engineering, Computers & Applied Sciences (JEC&AS) ISSN No: 2319-5606
Volume 2, No.8, August 2013
_________________________________________________________________________________


www.borjournals.com Blue Ocean Research Journals 29

Conclusion
a) Base shear increases as bracing level increases
for different types of bracings.
b) Base shear is more for Hexagonal & Radical
bracings of Full tank condition than Half Full
and Empty condition.
c) Over-turning moment increases as bracing level
increases for different types of bracings.
d) Over-turning moment is more Hexagonal &
Radical bracings of Full tank condition than Half
Full and Empty condition.
e) Bending Moment at bottom of column goes on
decreasing as level of bracing increases for
different bracing types.
f) Story displacement goes on decreasing as level
of bracing increases and Hexagonal & Radical
type bracing gives less story displacement as
compared to other bracing types.
g) The performance of Hexagonal and Radical type
bracing is better.

References
[1] George W. Housner (1963) The dynamic
behavior of water tanks Bulletin of the
Seismological Society of America. Vol.53, No.
2, pp. 381-387.
[2] IS: 11682-1985 Criteria for design of RCC
staging for over head water tanks, Bureau of
Indian Standards, New Delhi.
[3] IS:1893-2002(PartII) Criteria for Earthquake
Resistant Design of Structure (Liquid Retaining
Tanks), Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
[4] Sudhir K. Jain, O R Jaiswal (2007) IITK-
GSDMA Guidelines for Seismic Design of
Liquid Storage Tanks.
[5] Stuctural Analysis Program SAP2000. Users
manual, Computers and Structures, Inc., Berkley,
Calif.
[6] H. Shakib, F.Omidinasab and M.T. Ahmadi
(2010) Seismic Demand Evaluation of Elevated
Reinforced Concrete Water Tanks International
Journal of Civil Engineerng. Vol. 8, No. 3.
[7] Soheil Soroushnia, Sh. Tavousi Tafreshi, F.
Omidinasab, N. Beheshtian, Sajad Soroushnia
(2011) Seismic Performance of RC Elevated
Water Tanks with Frame Staging and Exhibition
Damage Pattern Procedia Engineering 14
,pp.30763087.
[8] Dr. Suchita Hirde, Ms. Asmita Bajare, Dr. Manoj
Hedaoo (2011) Seismic Performance of
Elevated Water Tanks International Journal of
Advanced Engineering Research and Studies,
IJAERS/Vol. I/ Issue I/October-December, pp.
78-87.
[9] Pravin B.Waghmare, Atul M. Raghatate & Niraj
D.Baraiya (2012) Comparative Performance of
Elevated Isolated Liquid Storage Tanks (With
Shaft Staging) International Journal of
Advanced Technology In Civil Engineering,
ISSN: 2231 5721, Volume-1, Issue-2.
[10] Chirag N. Patel, Burhan k. kanjetawala, H. S.
Patel (2013) Influence of Frame Type Tapered
Staging on Displacement of Elevated Water
Tank GIT-Journal of Engineering and
Technology, Sixth volume, ISSN 2249 6157.