Free Surface Sloshing Effect on Dynamic Response of Rectangular Storage Tanks

Dynamic analysis of liquid storage tanks is one of interesting subjects in the earthquake engineering. In the present paper, the staggered displacement method is utilized for analysing concrete storage tanks. In the proposed method, surface sloshing of the liquid domain is considered in addition to the effect of impulsive component of the liquid on the structure response. Also, different damping coefficients are applied on the various components of the liquid. Foundation is assumed to be rigid and an artificial dynamic load as well as a real ground motion record are used to analyse the tank-liquid coupled system in time domain. The resulted response is compared with those obtained from the commercial software. It is found that the convective term affects responses extensively and must be considered in seismic safety analysis of storage tanks.