Seismic Analysis on Cylindrical Tanks Subjected to Horizontal Acceleration

The dynamic behaviour of inviscid fluid contained in horizontally accelerated cylindrical tanks is considered. Mechanical equations describing the fluid motion are developed and simplified by use of small amplitude wave approximations, enabling expressions for the different modes of vibrations, sloshing frequencies and the free surface displacements to be obtained. The expression for free surface displacement is formulated in such a way that the time histories of the free surface displacement can be calculated for tanks subjected to real earthquake accelerograms. Comparisons of predicted and finite element analysis of different modes of vibration of the cylindrical tank, sloshing frequencies and free surface displacements of a model cylindrical water tank subjected to sinusoidal acceleration was found to be in close agreement