Experimental study on the seismic response of liquid storage tanks with Sliding Concave Bearings

COMPAGNONI, MARÍA E.; CURADELLI, OSCAR; AMBROSINI, DANIEL

JOURNAL OF LOSS PREVENTION IN THE PROCESS INDUSTRIES

ELSEVIER SCI LTD

Año: 2018 vol. 55 p. 1 - 9

0950-4230

It is known that, earthquakes have caused severe damages to a large number of industrial facilities, mainly storage tanks with extremely serious economic and environmental implications. Thus, it is extremely importance to use techniques for reducing the seismic vulnerability of such structures. Seismic base isolation as seismic protection technology is already known and its development continues to grow. The present paper focuses on the earthquake performance of broad and slender steel tanks base isolated by Friction Pendulum System (FPS). The performance study carried out through shaking table tests on a vertical cylindrical steel tank model allowed to determine quantitatively the efficiency of the FPS by analyzing two structural parameters: (a) sloshing height and (b) base shear force. Six real ground motions with different characteristics were considered. The results show the effectiveness of FPS in reducing the base shear force values for all studied cases without significantly affecting the sloshing displacements when compared with fixed support.