A Comparative Study of Performance of Various Isolation Systems for Liquid Storage Tanks

A comparative study of performance of various isolation systems for liquid storage tanks is investigated under real earthquake ground motions. The various base isolation systems considered are the laminated rubber bearings (with and without lead core) and sliding isolation systems (with and without restoring force). The isolated liquid storage tank is idealized with three-degrees-of-freedom associated with convective, impulsive and rigid mass under uni-directional earthquake excitation. Since the force-deformation behaviour of the isolation systems is non-linear, as a result, the equations of motion are solved numerically by step-by-step method. In order to measure the effectiveness of the isolation systems, the seismic response of the isolated liquid storage tanks is compared with the corresponding response of non-isolated tanks. Further, the effectiveness of the isolation is also explored for wide range of practical liquid storage tanks considering the influence of tank aspect ratio. It is observed that the isolation systems are quite effective in attenuating the earthquake acceleration transmitted to the tank, which reduces the design seismic forces significantly. Further, it is also found that the sliding type isolation systems are more effective in controlling the response of liquid storage tanks in comparison to the elastomeric bearings. Among the various sliding systems, the resilient-friction base isolator is found to be most effective for seismic isolation of the tanks.