Analysis and Parametric Study of Cylindrical Oil Storage Steel Tank with Emphasis on Seismic Design

Liquid storage tanks are used in industries for storing chemicals, petroleum products, and for storing water in public water distribution systems. Oil storage tank are special structures subjected to many different unconventional loading conditions, which result in unusual failure modes. Failure of an oil storage tank can be devastating as it can result in great loss of life, contamination of the material it contains, loss of material, cleanup, replacement costs and environmental damage. Poorly designed tanks have leaked, buckled or even collapsed during earthquakes. Common modes of failure are wall buckling, sloshing damage to roof, inlet/outlet pipe breaks and implosion due to rapid loss of contents. Tanks with average capacity of 4000 m3, diameter of about 16m and height of about 18m are common samples in Indian Tank farms. This research has focused on the behavior, under seismic conditions, of steel storage tanks of 2000-5000 kL capacity, located in high risk zones. Analysis is carried out by using finite element software STAAD-PRO. And finally, parametric study is done to obtain economic aspect ratio of the tank for which we get minimum stress in the tank.