EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS, VOL.

10,477-496 (1982)

SEISMIC DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID

STORAGE TANKS
T. BALENDRA*, K . K. A N G t , P. PARAMASWAMI AND S. L. LEES

Department of Civil Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

SUMMARY

Seismic response of cylindrical storage tanks anchored to rigid base slabs is considered. Finite elements are used for the
liquid and tank wall, idealized as a thin shell. For steel tanks of practical dimensions, design charts are presented for
natural frequencies, maximum shear and overturning moment on the foundation, and maximum stress resultants in the
tank wall. Furthermore, an analytical expression for the superelevation of the free surface is presented.

INTRODUCTION
In the seismic design of liquid storage tanks, the hydrodynamic forces induced by the stipulated ground
motion are normally computed by methods which assume that the tank is rigid. Perhaps the most widely
used of these procedures is that proposed by Housner. In this approach, a mathematical model of the
liquid-rigid tank system was used and the hydrodynamic effects were evaluated approximately as the sum of
two components, viz. an impulsive part which represents the portion of the liquid which moves in unison
with the tank and a convective component which represents the portion of the liquid sloshing in the tank.
Epstein2 improved Housners work and presented design curves for estimating the bending and overturning
moment induced by the hydrodynamic pressure, for cylindrical as well as rectangular rigid tanks. The effect of
tank flexibility was considered by Veletsos3 by assuming that the tank-fluid system behaves as a single degree
of freedom system. The effective masses for the system, the magnitudes and distribution of the hydrodynamic
forces, and the base shear and moment induced by these forces are evaluated for several prescribed modesof
vibration. Later Veletsos and Yang4 used Flugges shell theory to analyse the tank. The displacement
components of an arbitrary point on the shell were expressed in terms of the natural modes of vibration of a
uniform cantilever beam with shear and bending flexibilities, and the effect of the contained liquid was
approximated by assuming that a portion of the mass of liquid was attached to the shell. It is found that for
tanks with realistic flexibility, the impulsive forces are considerably higher than those in rigid tanks. A similar
observation is made by Kana and Dodge.5 In order to model the effect of contained liquid more accurately
Balendra and Nash6 used finite elements to discretize the liquid and tank wall, considered to be a thin elastic
shell. The effect of sloshing was neglected, and as a result the problem reduced to that of an empty cylindrical
tank with the mass matrix augmented by an added mass representing the effect of the contained liquid. The
program EXDOMTANK based on Reference 6 gives the time history response of displacements and stress
resultants in the shell due to impulsive forces. The purpose of the present investigation is to include the
sloshing effect or the convective part in the problem considered in Reference 6 and to develop design charts
for the determinations of sloshing and coupled vibration frequencies, maximum shear and overturning
moment on the foundation, and stress resultants in the shell. These design charts should prove to be useful for
design engineers. In order to estimate the required freeboard accurately, an improved expression for the
superelevation of the free surface is also presented in this paper.
__

*Lecturer.
t Senior Tutor.
3 Associate Professor.
8 Professor and Head.

0098-8847/82/030477-20$02.OO
@ 1982 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 4 March 1981

Revised 7 August 1981

478

T. BALENDRA E T A L .

EQUATIONS OF MOTION OF THE COUPLED SYSTEM

A cylindrical tank of radius R, height H and wall thickness t , supported on a rigid base slab as shown in
Figure 1 is considered. The tank is filled to a height of Hf with an incompressible, invisid liquid of mass
density pf. The liquid in the tank in the absence of any source, sink or cavities obeys the Laplace equation for
irrotational flow. The boundary conditions are as follows:
1. at the liquid free surface
n

<=Y
Pf 9

(1)

<

in which g is the acceleration due to gravity, the superelevation of the free surface over the undisturbed
mean surface level and p the liquid dynamic pressure;
2. at the tank bottom the velocity of liquid normal to the rigid base is zero;
3. at the liquid tank interface the velocity of liquid normal to the tank wall is equal to the radial velocity of
the tank wall.
The tank wall, considered as a thin shell, and liquid are discretized into finite elements. Ring elements' with
four degrees of freedom at each nodal circle, viz. axial u, circumferential u and radial w displacements and
slope of the generator w', where the prime denotes the derivative with respect to the axial coordinate, are
used for the shell. Annular ring elements of rectangular cross-section6 with liquid dynamic pressure as the
nodal degree of freedom are used for the liquid. The governing equations of motion for the coupled system
are6,
[MI ( 4 ) + CK1{4) - CSIT{P) = (0)

(2)

CMfl (PI + CKfl {PI + CSl{4) = (0)

(3)

in which [MI and [K] are the mass and stiffness matrices of the shell-generated by using the computer code
SAMMSOR-11," [Mf] and [Kf] the mass and stiffness matrices of the liquid, [S] the coupling force matrix
due to the interaction between the shell and the liquid, {q} the generalized nodal displacement amplitudes
and ( p } the nodal dynamic pressure amplitudes.

479

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

Equations (1) and (2) can be combined into a single matrix equation

in which the matrices associated with the shell and the coupling force matrix have been partitioned to
separate the base and off-base nodal parameters. Consequently, the symbols [MI, [K] and [S] are being
redefined to represent the matrices associated with off-base nodes. Furthermore, the complete displacement
vector of the shell is also partitioned to identify the base displacements {qb} and displacements of the off-base
nodes {q}. In equation (4), the vector {Fb} denotes the base reactions corresponding to the four degrees of
freedom of the base node.
In the case of free vibrations of the coupled liquid--elastic system,
{qb} = (4,)

f0)

( 5)

Hence in view of equation (5), equation (4) reduces to an eigen-value problem with non-symmetric system
matrices. Thus extraction of eigen-values and corresponding eigen-vectors becomes extremely difficult,
particularly when very large size matrices are involved. Owing to this serious numerical difficulty, the
sloshing effect was neglected in Reference 6. In the present investigation, the sloshing effect is retained and
symmetric system matrices for the determination of frequencies and the corresponding mode shapes of the
coupled system are obtained as described below.
Substituting for { q } , determined from row 2 of equation (4), row 3 of the same equation becomes
- [SM-'

Kb] {qb}

- [SM-' K] (4) 4-[I<,+ SM

' s'] { p } + [Sb-SM-

Mb]

{(i'b}

[Mf] {j}= ( 0 ) (6)

Premultiplying row 2 of equation (4) by [KM-'I yields

Combining row 1 of equation (4) with equation (6) and (7) leads to

For the free vibration of the coupled system, equation (8), in view of equation (5), reduces to the following
eigen-value problem:

CRI {+J-w,2Cr*il{+J

= (0)

(9)

where

and onis the nth natural frequency of the coupled system and {$"} the mode shape of the vector
corresponding to a,.From equation (9), low frequencies associated with the sloshing of liquid as well as the
high frequencies of coupled vibrations of liquid and shell can be obtained.

480

T. BALENDRA E T A L .

Sloshing frequencies of liquid

An analytical expression for the nth sloshing frequency of liquid in cylindrical tanks is given in References4
and 11 as
0,'
=

g/R& tanh(i,,H J R )

(1 1)

in which the values of A,,, corresponding to the first circumferential harmonic, are obtained from the following
equation:

Y1(i,,) = 0
In particular,

Sloshing frequencies obtained from equation (9) for various values of a = H,/R are found to be in good
agreement with those computed from equation (11). This is illustrated in Figure 2 for the first two sloshing
modes of the first circumferential harmonic (rn = 1).

0.8
0

2.0

Figure 2. Sloshing frequencies of first two modes for m = 1

Coupled vibration frequencies

The coupled vibration frequencies evaluated from equation (9) for water filled steel tanks, coo,,, are
normalized with respect to a&,the frequencies of a flexural steel beam of length Hi,
second moment of area
I = z R 3 t and mass per unit length m = 2nRtp + n R 2 pf. These are given by

where E and p are the modulus of elasticity and density of steel and the value of a,, depends on the type of
support conditions of the beam which are assumed to be identical to those of the tank. Thus for tanks which
are clamped at the base and free at the top
a, = 1.875, a , = 4.694,

a3 = 7.855, a4 = 10.996

(15)

As can be seen from Figure 3, the fundamental coupled vibration frequencies of clamped-free water filled
steel tanks, normalized in this way, are found to be in excellent agreement with those presented in Reference
4, for various values of LY with p = H,/H = 1.0 and z = t / R = 0901. The first two normalized coupled
vibration frequencies corresponding to the first circumferential harmonic are plotted in Figure 4 for several
values of the parameters a, p and z.

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

48 1

-_---Proposed

o,2Y

Method
-vOletsos
and Yung
(Ref. 4 )

3
4
1
2 d
Figure 3. Fundamental coupled vibration frequency of steel tank for f? = 1.0,T = 0.001 and m = 1

OO

EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE ANALYSIS

During ground motions, the excitation is applied to the system in the form of support motions. Thus, {qb}
and {qb} in equation (8) are the prescribed base nodal displacements and accelerations. At any time t, the
total off-base nodal displacements can be considered to be consisting of two parts, viz. {qs}plus {qd}, in which
{ q s ) is a function of the instantaneous ground displacement and is thus called static, while ( q d j depends on
the ground acceleration history and hence is termed dynamic.12 When {qs} is associated with the ground
displacement vector {qb}, the resulting motion of the structure corresponds to zero internal strain energy12
for which row 2 of equation (8) gives
(4s) = - CK1

'CKbl

{qb)

(16)

The right hand side of equation (16) has been demonstrated numerically to be a series of { q b ) . In other words,
the vector { q s ) is developed through rigid body displacement consistent with {qb). Thus

... q s N > T = < I I ... I)T{qb}

(17)
in which N is the total number of shell elements, [I] the (4 x 4) unit matrix and (qsi}the displacement vector
(4s) = ( q s 1

qs2

of node i.
In view of equations (16) and (17), the second and third rows of equation (8) can be combined in the
following form:
where

[fi1{u}+ [RI { u }= [Me1 {a,}

(18)

and [A] and [k]are as defined in equation (10).

If the horizontal component of the ground motion is assumed to be in the direction 8 = 0, where 8 is
measured anticlockwise from the diameter parallel to the direction of the earthquake, the base node
acceleration can be expressed as
zi' = 0, ii = - zi',(t) sin 8

where u,(t) is the ground acceleration. From equation (20)it is evident that for truly circular cylindrical tanks,

-m

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

483

only those antisymmetric axial modes corresponding to the first circumferential harmonic (rn = 1) will be
e ~ c i t e d . In~ view of equation (20), the base node acceleration amplitude vector becomes

{&)

-1

= ii,(t)(O

1 0)

EVALUATION OF MAXIMUM RESPONSE

The maximum modal response of the coupled system can be determined using the earthquake response
spectrum as

and A,,(q,,O) is the spectral acceleration of the ground motion corresponding to frequency wn and zero
damping. The maximum total response is then obtained either by taking the square root of the sum of
squares of the modal maxima or conservatively by the numerical sum of the modal m a ~ i m a . ~
As the frequencies of the coupled system occupy two widely separated ranges, viz. the low frequency
sloshing modes and the high frequency coupled vibration modes, the coupled system therefore responds
virtually as two separate systems. Hence, it is convenient to classify the modal responses of the coupled
system as convective and impulsive, whereby these terms denote respectively the effects of the sloshing
action of liquid and the effects of that portion of liquid which participates in coupled vibrations with the tank.
Generally, the first few significant convective and impulsive modes should be included in determining the
response of the coupled system. However, from studies made on the time history responses of several typical
storage tanks to the El Centro, 1940 earthquake (N-S component), it is found that the superposition of the
first convective modal response and the first impulsive modal response gives a very good approximation to
the actual response of the coupled system.
Hydrodynamic pressure at the tank wall
From equation (22), the maximum hydrodynamic pressure acting on the tank wall is expressed as
i

in which the first series denotes the summation of the convective components while the second series denotes
the summation of the impulsive components. It is reasonable to take the numerical sum of the convective and
impulsive contributions, as their heightwise distributions reveal that the convective effects are largest at the
surface while the impulsive effects are at the vicinity of the base.I3 The symbols A iand Aoj in equation (24)
denote the spectral accelerations corresponding to the ith sloshing frequency of the liquid and the jth
frequency of coupled vibrations respectively. The convective wall pressure coefficient, Ci(z/Hf),appearing in
equation (24),is a function of z/H, and c1, while the impulsive wall pressure coefficient, C,,{z/H,), is a function
of z/H,, a, fl and z.
The coefficients C,(z/H,), C,(z/H,) and C,(z/H,) are presented in Figure 5 for various values of a. It is seen
that the hydrodynamic pressure corresponding to the higher sloshing modes is substantially smaller than
that of the first mode. Furthermore, the effects of sloshing on the hydrodynamic pressure are concentrated
near the surface for larger values of a, particularly those corresponding to higher modes, whereas for smaller
values of a the effects penetrate all the way down to the base of the tank. This is expected as the sloshing
motion of liquid is basically a surface phenomena. For tanks that are slender (a > 1.5), the effects of sloshing
are therefore concentrated near the surface whereas for broad shallow tanks ( M < 1.3, the effects at the base
become appreciable.
The impulsive wall pressure coefficients due to the first two modes, Co,(z/Hf) and Co,(z/H,), are compared
with those presented by Veletsos and Yang4 in Figure 6 for the case of a full steel water tank (/? = 1.0) with

484

T. BALENDRA ETAL.

485

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

Figure 6. Comparison of impulsive wall pressure coefficients for a

1.0, fl = 1.0 and T

0.001

c1 = 1.0 and z = 0.001. As can be seen, both results are generally in good agreement throughout the tank
height except near the base where the values of Col(z/Hf) predicted in Reference 4 appear to be slightly
underestimated as compared to the results obtained here. Also, observe that the values of CO2(z/H,)are much
smaller than those of Col(z/Hf).The heightwise distribution of the pressure coefficients corresponding to the
fundamental impulsive mode is presented in Reference 9 for various values of c1, b and z.

Shear at the foundation

The maximum shear exerted at the foundation of the tank, Q*, is found by integrating over the entire liquid
depth, the lateral component of the hydrodynamic pressure acting on the tank wall in the direction 8 = 0.
Thus, in view of equation (24)

Q*

jO1"
jazz

P(z/H,, 0) cos OHf R d0 d(z/Hf)

or
in which

m0j

= mf a

lo1''

COj~zIHf)
d(z/Hf)

In equation (26), mi denotes the ith component of the convective mass-the mass of liquid participating in the
ith sloshing mode of vibration; and moj the jth component of the -impulsive mass-the mass of liquid
participating in thejth mode of coupled vibration. Furthermore, m, = pr ltR2 H, is the total mass of liquid in
the tank.
The first two convective and impulsive masses normalized with respect to m, are depicted in Figure 7 for
various values of c1 with b = 1.0 and z = 0.001. Also depicted in this figure are the first convective and

486

T. BALENDRA ET AL.

proposed

o,at\

mf

(proposed method
and Ref. 4)

2cc

Figure 7. Convective and impulsive masses of liquid for

0.75

method)

4
= 1.0 and

5
7 =

OGO1

= 0.25

Oat

3
5

Figure 8. Impulsive masses of liquid due to first and second modes

impulsive masses from Reference 4. The figures show that for tanks with a greater than 1.0, the values of m0,
given in Reference 4 are about 5 per cent smaller than those obtained in this investigation. For any particular
value of a, the sum (m, + m , +m,, +m0,) is almost equal to but less than the total mass of liquid. The
difference between these two quantities represents the mass associated with the remaining higher modes. The

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

487

convective masses are small for tall slender tanks (a > 13) but get increasingly larger as the tanks become
broader and shallower (ct < 15).
As the convective effects are governed by oscillations of much longer periods than those characterizing the
impulsive effects, the values of m , and m2 cannot be materially influenced by the flexibility of the tank. Thus
the quantities m, and m, can be determined with good accuracy from Figure 7 for all practical values of B and
z. The impulsive effects, on the other hand, are dependent on the values of p and T. Plots of m,, and m,,
normalized with respect to m, are presented in Figure 8 for several values of these parameters.
Overturning moment at the foundation
The maximum overturning moment acting on the foundation of the tank, M*, is evaluated by summing the
overturning effect of the lateral component of the hydrodynamic pressure acting on the tank wall and that
due to the hydrodynamic pressure acting on the base, i.e.
M*

lo1''
lo2'

P(z/Hf,0)cos 6(z/Hf)H f d0 d(z/H,)

lo1''
lo2"

P*(r/R, 0) cos 6(r/R)2R3 d0d(r/R)

where P*(r/R, 0) is the maximum hydrodynamic pressure at the tank base and can be expressed as
i

0.6

z = 0,001

4.0

z= O m 5

II

0.4 -

Cmo,
0.2-

OI

0.6

I \

Figure 9. Convective and impulsive base overturning moment coefficients due to first mode

(28)

488

T. BALENDRA ETAL.

in which Cf(r/R) and C;j(r/R) are the convective and impulsive base pressure coefficients respe~tively.~
Substituting equations (24) and (29) into equation (28) leads to
M*

(1Cmi +I

in which
Cmi= a

jO1"
jol"

cmoj=a

C m o j A0j)mf Hf

Ai

(30)

+! lo1"

Ci(z/Hf)z/Hf d(z/Hf)

coj(z/Hf)z/Hf d(z/Hf)+

CT(r/R)(r/R)2d(r/R)

jol"

~ j ( r /(r/R)2
~ ) d(r/R)

(31)

Results of the dimensionless coefficients C,, and CnOl corresponding to the first convective and impulsive
modes are presented in Figure 9.
Stress resultants in the shell
The force and moment resultants on a typical shell element shown in Figure 10 can be computed from the
element stiffness matrix, [K],, and the element coupling force matrix, [S],, as
nR{F>e = CKIe{q}e-CSlf{~}e

(32)

where { F } e comprises the shell nodal forces per unit length of the shell middle surface, i.e.
{F>e =

{NsiNs,iQsiMsiNsjNsejQsjMsj>T

(33)

In equation (33), N, and N,, are the axial and inplane shear stress resultants, Q, the transverse shear stress
resultant and M, the axial bending moment resultant. The modal maxima of the above stress resultants, as
well as the hoop stress No, are evaluated using the maximum nodal displacements and nodal pressures
computed from equation (22). By superposing the modal maxima, the maximum values of the stress
resultants along the height of the tank wall can be expressed as

in which nSi(z/H),nOi(z/H),n,&/H), qSi(z/H)and mSi(z/H)are dimensionless coefficients defining the heightwise

variation of the corresponding maximum stress resultants due to the ith convective mode, and nsoJ(z/H),
neo,(z/H), nSoJ(z/H),qsoj(z/H)and msoj(z/H)are the corresponding quantities due to the jth impulsive mode.
The moments Me and M,,, and the transverse shear Qe, are not substantial and thus are not presented here.
The stress resultants N,, No and Nsoare found to attain their maximum values in the first convective mode
of vibration at the base. The coefficients corresponding to these maximum values of N,, No and Nse, denoted
by A,,, A,, and Asel, are plotted in Figure ll(a) for various values of a. The coefficients &, and msl,
corresponding to maximum Q, and M, in the first convective mode of vibration, are given in Figure 1l(b). As
the maximum values of Q, and M, occur at two different locations depending on the value of a, viz. at the base
for small a and just above the water level for large a, the curves plotted in Figure 1l(b) have a discontinuous
slope when the location of maximum stresses changes position.

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

I
Figure 10. Stress resultants on a typical shell element

7--

1
b

0
0

2 d 3

7 0

Figure 11. Convective stress coefficients due to first mode

489

490

T. BALENDRA ETAL.

From the heightwise variation of the coefficients n,,,(z/H), neol(z/H),n s e o l ( Z / H ) , associated with the first
impulsive mode of vibration13 it is found that:
1. the axial stress is always maximum at the base;
2. the maximum hoop stress occurs either at the base or at a section above the base depending on the value
of a; and
3. the inplane shear stress is maximum at the base for a Q 3.0 whereas for higher values of a, the maximum
section shifts slightly above the base.
cfsol and msOf
associated with the maximum stress resultants in the tank in
The coefficients hsol, heal,
the first impulsive mode of vibration are plotted against a in Figures 12 to 16 for several values of fi and z.
From these figures, it is evident that the hoop stress, NO, is the largest among all the membrane stress
resultants for broad shallow tanks (small a). However, as a increases, the membrane shear stress, Nse,becomes
dominant and is then superseded by the axial stress, N , for tanks which are tall and slender (large a).
However, it should be noted that the largest stress may not necessarily control the design since the membrane

2.01

2.5

p.

0.75

= 0.50

Figure 12. Impulsive axial stress coefficients due to first mode

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

49 1

0.2

Figure 13. Impulsive hoop stress coefficients due to first mode

Figure 14. Impulsive membrance shear stress

coefficients due to first mode

hoop stress is tensile while the axial stress may be compressive, leading to shell buckling at lower values of
stress.
Freeboard
Seismic excitation can damage not only the cylindrical shell but also the roof of the tank, if any. The failure
of roofs due to sloshing is encountered in oil storage tanks, which are usually designed to fail at the roof-shell
connections in the event of fire so as to relieve the pressure and maintain the integrity of the tank. As this
design consideration usually over-rides the consideration of earthquake resistance, it is therefore necessary to
have sufficient freeboard to prevent damages to the roofs due to sloshing.

T. BALENDRA

492

?
c

ETAL.

OD

O k
X

9
0

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

493

In view of equation (l), the maximum free surface displacement at the tank wall due to the first three
sloshing modes can be expressed as

Yf Y

in which Ci(l-O)is the ith convective wall pressure coefficient at the liquid free surface. As all the terms in
equation (35) are due to sloshing action at the same location, it is more appropriate to use the root-sumsquare method of superposition in order to avoid an over-conservative estimate of the maximum liquid
surface displacement.
The variation of Ci(l.O) with a for i = 1 to 3 (Figure 5) can be described by the following equations:
0.840

C1(l.O)= 0 * 8 4 0 0 ! - ~ ' ~ ~ ~ % a

0.075
C,(l*O) = 0 . 0 7 5 ~ t - ~ ' ~ ~ ~ ~ U

0.030
C,(1.0) = 0030a-0~998~--U

By substituting equation (36) into equation (35), the maximum free surface displacement is obtained as

An expression similar to the above is given in Reference 2 as

d,,, --0.831A1
--

which is almost identical to the first modal component in equation (37).

Since the liquid free surface displacement due to the sloshing motion is practically uninfluenced by the
flexibility of the tank, it should be pointed out that the proposed expression given in equation (37) is
applicable to cylindrical tanks with or without domes.

APPLICATION O F DESIGN CHARTS

A cylindrical steel water tank of radius R = 12*2m, height H = 12.2m and thickness t = 0.0122m is
considered. The material properties are: E = 207 x lo3kN/m', p = 7830kg/m3, pf = 1000kg/m3, and
Poisson's ratio for steel is 0.3. The N-S component of the El Centro earthquake (May 1940)is assumed to be
the stipulated design earthquake.
If the tank is filled with water to a height of 6.1 m, then
Hf
R

a = - = 0.5,

Hf = 0.5
p =,
H

t
R

z = - = 0.001

Frequencies

The sloshing frequencies corresponding to the first three convective modes are evaluated from equation
(11) as
w1 = 1.037rad/s,

w2 = 2.061 rad/s,

w3 = 2619rad/s

494

T. BALENDRA E T A L .

From Figure 4 and equation (14)

oX1= 520.8 rad/s,

w:, = 3264.2 rad/s

Thus, the coupled vibration frequencies corresponding to the first two impulsive modes are
wol = 60.41 rad/s,

coo, = lll.Orad/s

Shear at the foundation

The spectral accelerations corresponding to frequencies ol,
w2, w3, wol and woz for zero damping are
found to be
A , = 0.02869, A , = 01939, A , = 0.2469

A,, = 1.0629, A,, = 0.4219

For the example considered, the convective and impulsive masses due to the first two modes are determined
from Figures 7 and 8 respectively. Thus
m
-2= 0.028
mf
mf
mo-1 - 0.295, mo, = 0.0
"f
mf

m1 _
- 0.662,

Hence from equation (26), the maximum shear acting at the foundation
Q* = 9.45 x lo3kN
Overturning moment at the foundation
The coefficients Cml and CmOlfor the example considered, are determined from Figure 9 as
C,, = 1.03, CmOl= 0.43

Hence, from equation (30), the maximum overturning moment acting at the foundation

M*

= 8 3 . 0 ~103kN.m

Stress resultants in the shell

The coefficients associated with the maximum stress resultants due to the first convective mode are
determined from Figure 11 as

hsl = 0.175; hel

= 1.58; hsel = 0.63;

&sl

= 0.0315;

iks1

Table I. Comparison of design chart with

API codeI4
Charts

API code

1.037

1.037

m1
mi

0662

0.666

mo 1
-

0.295

0.288

0.175
0.07

0-177
0.06

w1 (

As1
As0 1

W s )

= 0.81 x

49 5

FLEXIBLE CYLINDRICAL LIQUID STORAGE TANKS

for a = 0.5. The corresponding impulsive stress coefficients determined from Figures 12 to 16 for a = 050,
j = 0.50 and T = 0.001 are
= 007;

fiool

i2,001 = 0.29;

= 0.89;

BOl= 0.0215;

hSo1
=0.54~

Hence, in view of equation (34), the maximum stress resultants in the tank wall are obtained as

N , = (0.175 x A , +0.07 x Aol)-mf 9 = 58 kN/m

7ZR
N,

= (1.58 x

A , +049 x Ao,)-mf 9
7ZR

= 720kN/m

N,, = (0.63 x A , +0.29 x A o , ) mf

- 9 = 238 kN/m
7ZR
mf 9 = 17 kN/m
Q, = (0.0315 x A , +0.0215 x A 0 J -

71R

M,

= (0.81 x

A , +054 x Aol) mf 9Hf = 2.7 kN .m/m

~ Z R x 103

Freeboard
The maximum water surface displacement at the wall is computed from equation (37). Thus, for the same
example when j = 0.50

d,,, = J(0-2932+0.1772 +0-0902) = 0.354m

The validity of the design charts is established in Tables I and 11, by comparing the quantities obtained
from the design charts with those obtained from the American Petroleum Institute Standard 650 (Reference
Table 11. Maximum shear and overturning moment at the foundation, and maximum stress and
moment resultants in the shell

Charts* Program?
92.2
797
1021
3096
2324
108
19.3

81.8
756
997
3210
2278
107
19.1

Charts* Programt
17.3
146
126
964
430
25
44

Charts* Program?

16.6
133
123
899
420
24
4.3

9.45
83
58
120
238
17
2.7

*Using first convective and first impulsive modes.

t Using first 15 modes of the coupled system.

Table 111. Maximum water surface displacement (meters)

P = Hf/H
Equation (37)*
Programt

Epstein (Reference 2)

1.00

0.75

0.50

0.488
0.505

0.423
0.415
0.370

0.354
0,346
0-290

0.404

* Using first 3 sloshing modes.

t Using first

15 modes of the coupled system.

8.8 1
76
49
685
223
16
25

496

T. BALENDRA ETAL.

14) and time history response. For the latter the liquid is discretized into ten equal elements along the radius
as well as along the depth, whereas the tank wall is discretized into ten equal elements below the water level
and five equal elements above the water level. This discretization is found to give the optimum mesh size for
accuracy and computer time. It is evident from Table 111 that the expression given by Epstein2 [equation
(38)] using only the first mode underestimates the maximum freeboard. This is due to the fact that the
contributions from the second and third convective modes, though smaller than that due to the first, are not
negligible. Hence, the expression presented herein [equation (37)] estimates the freeboard more accurately.

CONCLUSION
Useful design charts are presented for the determination of natural frequencies, maximum shear and
overturning moment at the foundation, stress resultants in the tank wall, and required freeboard for
cylindrical liquid storage tanks anchored to the ground, and subjected to horizontal components of
earthquake excitation. These charts are applicable only for truly circular cylindrical tanks as any
imperfection of the tank can excite higher circumferential harmonic^.'^ It is found that except for the
freeboard, superposition of the first convective and first impulsive modal contributions give a very good
approximation to the total response of the system. Depending on the earthquake response spectrum, the tank
with liquid to maximum depth may or may not have the maximum response. Thus several liquid depths
should be investigated in order to identify the critical condition for design purposes.
REFERENCES
SOC. Am., 47, 15-35 (1957).
H. I. Epstein, Seismic design of liquid-storage tanks, J. struct. din, ASCE, 102, 1659-1673 (1976).
A. S. Veletsos, Seismic effects in flexible liquid storage tanks, Proc. int. assoc. for earthquake eng., Rome, Italy, 1, 630-639 (1974).
A. S. Veletsos and J. Y. Yang, Earthquake response of liquid storage tanks, Adv. civil eng. through eng. mech., ASCE, 1-24 (1977).
D. D. Kana and F. T. Dodge, Design support modelling of liquid slosh in storage tanks subject to seismic excitation, Proc. ASCE
con$ struct. des. Nucl. Plant Facilities, 307-337 (1975).
T. Balendra and W. A. Nash, Earthquake analysis of a cylindrical liquid storage tank with a dome by finite element method,
Research Report, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts, May 1978.
T. Balendra and W. A. Nash, EXDOMTANK-response of a seismically excited domed cylindrical storage tank, ground
supported, and partially filled with liquid, Computer program available through the National Information Service for Earthquake
Engineering, Berkeley, CA, July 1978.
J. A. Stricklin, D. R. Navaratna and T. H. H. Pian, Improvement on the analysis of shells of revolution by the matrix displacement
method, A l A A J., 4,2069-2072 (1966).
K. K. Ang, Seismic analysis of liquid storage tanks using finite element technique, M . Eng. Thesis, Department ofCivil Engineering,
National University of Singapore, Singapore, 1980.
J. R. Tillerson and W. E. Haisler, SAMMSOR-11-a finite element program to determine stiffness and mass matrices of shells of
revolution, Report 7 k 1 8 , Texas A & M University, Oct. 1970.
M. Aslam, W. G. Godden and D. T. Scalise, Earthquake sloshing in annular and cylindrical tanks, J. eng. mech. diu., ASCE, 105,
371-389 (1979).
R. W. Clough, Analysis of structural vibration and dynamic response, Recent Advances in Matrix Methods of Structural Analysis
and Design (Eds. R. H. Gallagher, Y. Yamada and J. T. Oden), 1969, pp 441486.
A. Kalnins and D. A. Godfrey, Seismic analysis of thin shell structures, Nuct. eng. des., 27, 68-76 (1974).
Welded steel tanks for oil storage, American Petroleum Institute Standard 650 (1978).
D. P. Clough, Experimental evaluation of seismic design methods for broad cylindrical tanks, Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Civil
Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 1976.

1. G. W. Housner, Dynamic pressures on accelerating fluid containers, Bull. seism.

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