• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1992.10a
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• pp.61-66
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• 1992

The present paper deals with the optimum design of reinforced concrete cylindrical shell tanks in according to ACI 318-89 code. The purpose of this investigation is to find the optimum values of the steel ratio and the effective thickness of reinforced concrete cylindrical shell tanks. The analysts is carried out using a simple computer programming, SMAP(segmented matrix analysis package). The optimization is carried out using GINO programming. Optimum results for cylindrical shell tanks with uniform, stepwise and piecewise linealy varying thicknesses are presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.533-543
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• 2000

To prevent major cracking and failure during earthquakes, it is important to design reinforced concrete liquid storage structures, such as water and fuel storage tanks, properly for the hydrodynamic pressure loads caused by seismic excitations. There is a discussion in recent Codes that most of the base shear applied to liquid containment structures is resisted by inplane membrane shear rather than by transverse flexural shear. The purpose of this paper is to underline the importance of the membrane force system in carrying the base shear produced by hydrodynamic pressures in both rectangular and cylindrical tank structures. Only rigid tanks constrained at the base are considered. Analysis is performed for both tall and broad tanks to compare their behavior under seismic excitation. Efforts are made to quantify the percentage of base shear carried by membrane action and the consequent procedures that must be followed for safe design of liquid containing storage structures.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.615-636
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• 2000

Some elevated water tanks have failed due to torsional vibrations in past earthquakes. The overall axisymmetric structural geometry and mass distribution of such structures may leave only a small accidental eccentricity between centre of stiffness and centre of mass. Such a small accidental eccentricity is not expected to cause a torsional failure. This paper studies the possibility of amplified torsional behaviour of elevated water tanks due to such small accidental eccentricity in the elastic as well as inelastic range; using two simple idealized systems with two coupled lateral-torsional degrees of freedom. The systems are capable of retaining the characteristics of two extreme categories of water tanks namely, a) tanks on staging with less number of columns and panels and b) tanks on staging with large number of columns and panels. The study shows that the presence of a small eccentricity may lead to large displacement of the staging edge in the elastic range, if the torsional-to-lateral time period ratio $({\tau})$ of the elevated tanks lies within a critical range of 0.7< ${\tau}$ <1.25. Inelastic behaviour study reveals that such excessive displacement in some of the reinforced concrete staging elements may cause unsymmetric yielding. This may lead to progressive strength deterioration through successive yielding in same elements under cyclic loading during earthquakes. Such localized strength drop progressively develop large strength eccentricity resulting in large localized inelastic displacement and ductility demand, leading to failure. So, elevated water tanks should have ${\tau}$ outside the said critical range to avoid amplified torsional response. The tanks supported on staging with less number of columns and panels are found to have greater torsional vulnerability. Tanks located near faults seem to have torsional vulnerability for large ${\tau}$.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.727-741
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• 2019

A reinforced concrete water tank is a typical functional liquid storage structure and cracks are the greatest threat to the liquid storage structure. Tanks are readily cracked due to seismic activity, thereby leading to the leakage of the stored liquid and a loss of function. In order to study the effect of cracks on liquid storage tanks, self-healing and leakage tests for bending cracks and through cracks in the walls of a reinforced concrete water tank were conducted. Material performance tests were also performed. The self-healing performance of bending cracks in a lentic environment and through cracks in a lotic environment were tested, thereby the self-healing width of bending micro-cracks in the lentic environment in the short term were determined. The through cracks had the capacity for self-healing in the lotic environment was found. The leakage characteristics of the bending cracks and through cracks were tested with the actual water head on the crack. The effects on liquid leakage of the width of bending cracks, the depth of the compression zone, and the acting head were determined. The relationships between the leakage rate and time with the height of the water head were analyzed. Based on the tests, the relationships between the crack characteristics and self-healing as well as the leakage were obtained. Thereby the references for water tank structure design and grading earthquake damage were provided.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.201-214
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• 2016

The outer tank of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tank is a longitudinally and meridianally pre-stressed concrete (PSC) wall structure. Because of the current trend of constructing larger LNG storage tanks, the pre-stressing forces required to increase wall strength must be significantly increased. Because of the increase in tank sizes and pre-stressing forces, an extreme loading scenario such as a bomb blast or an airplane crash needs to be investigated. Therefore, in this study, the blast resistance performance of LNG storage tanks was analyzed by conducting a blast simulation to investigate the safety of larger LNG storage tanks. Test data validation for a blast simulation of reinforced concrete panels was performed using a specific FEM code, LS-DYNA, prior to a full-scale blast simulation of the outer tank of a 270,000-kL LNG storage tank. Another objective of this study was to evaluate the safety and serviceability of an LNG storage tank with respect to varying amounts of explosive charge. The results of this study can be used as basic data for the design and safety evaluation of PSC LNG storage tanks.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.90 no.5
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• pp.493-504
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• 2024

This paper presents the methodology and results for the investigation of the structural safety of 40 aged underground water tanks to support the weight of photovoltaic (PV) systems that were supposed to be placed on their roof reinforced concrete (RC) slabs. The investigation procedure included (1) review of available documents; (2) visual inspection of the roof RC slabs; (3) carrying out a series of nondestructive (ND) tests; and (4) analysis of results. Out of the 40 tanks, eleven failed the visual inspection phase and were discarded from further investigation. The roof RC slabs of the tanks that passed the visual inspection were subjected to a series of ND tests that included infrared thermography, impact echo, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), Schmidt hammer, concrete core compressive strength, and water-soluble chloride content. The NDT results proved that eight more tanks were not suitable to support the PV systems. Based on the results of the visual inspection and testing, a probabilistic decision-making criterion was established to reach a decision regarding the structural integrity of the roof slabs. The study concluded that the condition of the drainage filter was essential in protecting the tanks and its intact presence can be used as a strong indication of the structural integrity of the roof RC slabs.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.371-382
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• 2009

The concrete plates are most widely used structural elements in the hulls of floating concrete structures such as concrete barges and pontoons, bridge decks, basement floors and liquid storage tanks. The study on the behavior of high-strength fiber reinforced concrete (HSFRC) plates was carried out to evaluate the performance of plates under in-plane and transverse loads. The plates were tested in simply supported along all the four edges and subjected to in-plane and traverse loads. In this experimental program, twenty four 150 mm diameter cylinders and twelve plate elements of size $600{\times}600{\times}30$ mm were prepared and tested. Water-to-cementitious materials ratios of 0.3 and 0.4 with 10% and 15% silica fume replacements were used in the concrete mixes. The fiber volume fractions, $V_f$ = 0%, 1% and 1.5% with an aspect ratio of 80 were used in this study. The HSFRC mixes had the concrete compressive strengths in the range of 52.5 to 70 MPa, flexural strengths ranging from 6.21 to 11.08 MPa and static modulus of elasticity ranging from 29.68 to 36.79 GPa. In this study, the behavior of HSFRC plate elements subjected to combined uniaxial in-plane and transverse loads was investigated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.1273-1287
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• 2014

Plates are most widely used in the hulls of floating concrete structures, bridge decks, walls of off-shore structures and liquid storage tanks. A method of analysis is presented for the determination of load-deflection response and ultimate strength of high-strength steel fiber reinforced concrete (HSSFRC) plates simply supported on all four edges and subjected to combined action of external compressive in-plane and transverse loads. The behavior of HSSFRC plate specimens subjected to combined uniaxial in-plane and transverse loads was investigated. The proposed analytical method is compared to the physical test results, and shows good agreement. To predict the constitutive behavior of HSSFRC in compression, a non-dimensional characteristic equation was proposed and found to give reasonable accuracy.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.243-254
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• 2022

Reinforced concrete (RC) deep beams are critical structural elements used in offshore pile caps, rectangular cross-section water tanks, silo structures, transfer beams in high-rise buildings, and bent caps. As a result of the low shear span ratio to effective depth (a/d) in deep beams, arch action occurs, which leads to shear failure. Several studies have been carried out to improve the shear resistance of RC deep beams and avoid brittle fracture behavior in recent years. This study was performed to investigate the behavior of RC deep beams numerically and experimentally with different reinforcement arrangements. Deep beams with four different reinforcement arrangements were produced and tested under monotonic static loading in the study's scope. The horizontal and vertical shear reinforcement members were changed in the test specimens to obtain the effects of different reinforcement arrangements. However, the rebars used for tension and the vertical shear reinforcement ratio were constant. In addition, the behavior of each deep beam was obtained numerically with commercial finite element analysis (FEA) software ABAQUS, and the findings were compared with the experimental results. The results showed that the reinforcements placed diagonally significantly increased the load-carrying and energy absorption capacities of RC deep beams. Moreover, an apparent plastic plateau was seen in the load-displacement curves of these test specimens in question (DE-2 and DE-3). This finding also indicated that diagonally located reinforcements improve displacement ductility. Also, the numerical results showed that the FEM method could be used to accurately predict RC deep beams'behavior with different reinforcement arrangements.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.77-82
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• 2013

The construction of LNG storage tanks has been increased due to the expansion of LNG demand. LNG tanks which consist of an inner cylindrical 9%Ni metal tank and reinforced concrete, are insulated with perlite powder and resilient blanket for absorbing the perlite pressure in insulation annulus between two inner and outer tanks. This study tries to find out the design specifications and characteristics for blanket thickness and design pressure. The results show that the design basis for the blanket thickness should be approximately 30% to 40% of annulus width and the design pressure be applied below 2,200~2,700Pa with blanket thickness.