Livaoglu, R.

Main purpose of this study is to evaluate the dynamic behavior of fluid-rectangular tank-soil/foundation system with a simple and fast seismic analysis procedure. In this procedure, interaction effects are presented by Housner's two mass approximations for fluid and the cone model for soil/foundation system. This approach can determine; displacement at the height of the impulsive mass, the sloshing displacement and base forces for the soil/foundation system conditions including embedment and incompressible soil cases. Models and equations for proposed method were briefly explained for different tank-soil/foundation system combinations. By means of changing soil/foundation conditions, some comparisons are made on base forces and sloshing responses for the cases of embedment and no embedment. The results showed that the displacements and base shear forces generally decreased, with decreasing soil stiffness. However, embedment, wall flexibility, and soil-structure interaction (SSI) did not considerably affect the sloshing displacement.

Livaoglu, R.; Dogangun, A.

This paper investigates the effects of foundation embedment on the seismic behavior of fluid-elevated tank-foundation-soil system with a structural frame supporting the fluid containing tank. Six different soil types defined in the well-known seismic codes were considered. Both the sloshing effects of the fluid and soil-structure interaction of the elevated tanks located on these six different soils were included in the analyses. Fluid-elevated tank-foundation-soil systems were modeled with the finite element (FE) technique. The fluid-structure interaction was taken into account using Lagrangian fluid FE approximation implemented in the general purpose structural analysis computer program, ANSYS. FE model with viscous boundary was used to include elevated tank-foundation-soil interaction effects. The models were analyzed for the foundations with and without embedment. It was found that the tank roof displacements were affected significantly by the embedment in soft soil, however, this effect was smaller for stiff soil types. Except for soft soil types, embedment did not affect the other response parameters, such as sloshing displacement, of the systems considered in this study.