Passive Control in Baffled Liquid storage Tank under Bi-directional Earthquakes

A comprehensive study of a 3D baffled concrete liquid storage tank (LST) is conducted to find out the maximum reduction in responses of the LSTs under a set of important parametric variations. They include (i) the type of earthquake; (ii) the optimum position and number of coupled baffles (top-mounted and bottom supported); and (iii) the angle of incidence earthquakes. Further, the percentage reductions of different responses of interest for the optimum baffled LST are investigated. The numerical study is performed in ABAQUS software for a square LST of 6m X 6m X 4.8m having a water height of 3.6m. The response quantities include the maximum mean values of base shear, overturning moment, top board displacement, hydrodynamic pressure, and sloshing height. The results of the study show that (i) with the optimum arrangement of baffles, significant reduction of in the sloshing height can be achieved; (ii) the type of earthquake does not have significant effect response reductions; and (iii) both PGA and angle of incidence of the earthquake have a moderate effect on response reductions.