Structural behavior of steel liquid storage tanks under the impact of earthquake

On February 6, 2023, the earthquakes with a magnitude of Mw=7.8 and Mw=7.6, which occurred in Turkey and affected eleven provinces, with the epicenter in Kahramanmaraş, caused damage to lifelines such as pipelines, storage tanks, tunnels, marine structures and industrial structures, as well as living spaces. In industrial tanks; damages such as damage to tank walls due to shaking, and rupture of tank connection elements due to sliding and rising were frequently observed. Considering the magnitude of the earthquake, the performance of storage tanks was at a sufficient level rather than critical damages. It is thought that this will cause the shaking levels and stresses on tank walls to decrease in tanks with sliding movements. This thesis aims to investigate these effects. In this context, a self-supporting oil tank was considered in a tank farm located in Nurdağı/Gaziantep. In this context, a 3D nonlinear fluid-structure interaction numerical model was developed; the stresses and deformations that will occur on the tank wall under different friction coefficients were calculated. The results showed that the rise of the tank bottom and the deformations of the tank wall decreased with the increase in the sliding of the tank bottom. It also showed that the vertical earthquake motion should be considered in the system in order to ensure the accuracy of the modeling in tank studies. Keywords: Liqued Storage Tanks 1, Abaqus 2, Base Uplift 3, Sliding of Storage tanks 4, Earthquake 5