Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Rectangular Liquid-Containing Structures under Seismic Excitation

Abstract

Liquid-containing structures are used for various municipal and industrial applications. The functionality of these structures in seismic regions is crucial. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of liquid under seismic excitations using numerical modelling. For this purpose, experimental and numerical studies are conducted. In the experimental tests, a ground-supported rectangular tank is excited on a shaking table. The tests are videotaped from two directions and subsequently analyzed frame-by-frame. Four different orientations are tested to investigate the effect of bilateral excitation. In the numerical simulations, the same tank is modeled in OpenFOAM—a computational fluid dynamics program—and the same excitations are applied. The results from the numerical and the experimental studies are compared, and reliability of the numerical model is discussed. Furthermore, using the numerical model, the pressure on the roof of the tank is obtained at various locations and examined for different excitations.

Keywords

• liquid container
• computational fluid dynamics
• OpenFOAM
• earthquake
• sloshing
• water tank