Analytical study of cylindrical tanks including soil-structure interaction

Abstract An analytical study aiming the design of cylindrical liquid storage tanks resting on deformable foundations is developed in this work. The soil under the tanks is modeled as an elastic linear medium. The cylindrical wall is considered rigidly connected to the plate foundation. Here, concrete tanks are emphasized, although the study can be extended to other construction materials. For the analysis of the design forces acting on the tanks, efficient and simplified approximate expressions are derived based on rigorous analytical theories for thin shells and circular plate on elastic foundations. To verify the proposed approximate expressions and investigate the influence of the foundation deformability on displacements and design forces, parametric analyses of concrete tanks with different soil stiffness values are presented. The results illustrate the strong influence of the foundation stiffness on the tank design quantities and a very good performance of the simplified expressions.