Study on the Influence of Earthquakes with Different Frequency Content on the Peak Liquid Sloshing Wave Height of Liquid Storage Tank

Abstract

Liquid storage tank is an irreplaceable and extremely important vessel structure used to store liquid medium. In earthquake disaster, the liquid storage tank will not only be seriously damaged directly, but also cause serious secondary disasters, such as fire, explosion, poisoning, nuclear radiation, etc. The peak liquid sloshing wave height is an important reference index to judge whether the seismic design of the liquid storage tank is reasonable or not. The ratio of peak ground acceleration to peak ground velocity of the earthquake records (shown by A/V ratio) can well represent the characteristics of frequency content of earthquake records. In this paper, the finite element numerical simulation method is used to analyze the seismic response of six rectangular concrete tanks with different liquid heights, and their respective peak liquid sloshing wave heights are calculated. Nine seismic records with different A/V ratios are used, which are low frequency category, medium frequency category and high frequency category and there are three records in each category. At the same time, the equation in Eurocode 8 is used to calculate the peak liquid sloshing wave height of each tank for comparative study. The study results show that the peak liquid sloshing wave height calculated by the Eurocode 8 is greater than that calculated by the finite element method under low frequency and medium frequency earthquake records, indicating that Eurocode 8 is conducive to the preliminary design of the seismic performance of the liquid storage tank. However, in the case of high frequency earthquake records, the calculation result of the finite element method is larger than that of the equation in Eurocode 8. The peak liquid sloshing wave height of the liquid storage tank is more sensitive to the earthquakes with high frequency content, and the Eurocode 8 underestimates the impact of high frequency seismic response on the liquid storage tank.