Enhanced Seismic Fragility Analysis of Unanchored Above-Ground Steel Liquid Storage Tanks

Author(s):  
Hoang Nam Phan ◽  
Fabrizio Paolacci ◽  
Silvia Alessandri ◽  
Phuong Hoa Hoang

Earthquake damage in recent decades has revealed that storage tanks are one of the most vulnerable components in petrochemical and oil processing plants. Damage to tanks commonly associated with losses of containment, and thus results in the overall damage to nearby areas. Many of existing steel storage tanks were designed with outdated analysis methods and with underestimated seismic loads; therefore, various types of failure may occur during a strong ground shaking. This paper aims to present an appropriate methodology for the component fragility evaluation of existing storage tanks in a process plant, which will support for the determination of the loss of containment in terms of the ground motion intensity measure and finally the quantitative risk analysis of the plant and its nearby areas. In this respect, an unanchored oil storage tank, which is ideally located in Sicily (Italy), is selected as a case study. The significance of modeling parameters of the tank is first investigated with a screening study, which is based on nonlinear static pushover analyses of the tank using the ABAQUS software. The study aims to enhance the understanding of which modeling parameters significantly affect the seismic response of the tank and to reduce the number of analyses in the fragility evaluation. The fragility curves are then developed based on a lumped-mass model that is calibrated from the static pushover analysis results. Sources of uncertainty, related to significant parameters previously identified, are considered in the fragility analysis using a sampling procedure to generate statistically significant samples of the model.

2018 ◽  
Vol 141 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hoang Nam Phan ◽  
Fabrizio Paolacci ◽  
Silvia Alessandri

Catastrophic failure of the above ground steel storage tanks was observed during past earthquakes, which caused serious economic and environmental consequences. Many of the existing tanks were designed in the past with outdated analysis methods and with underestimated seismic loads. Therefore, the evaluation of the seismic vulnerability of these tanks, especially ones located in seismic prone areas, is extremely important. Seismic fragility functions are useful tools to quantify the seismic vulnerability of structures in the framework of probabilistic seismic risk assessment. These functions give the probability that a seismic demand on a given structural component meets or exceeds its capacity. The objective of this study is to examine the seismic vulnerability of an unanchored steel storage tank, considering the uncertainty of modeling parameters that are related to material and geometric properties of the tank. The significance of uncertain modeling parameters is first investigated with a screening study, which is based on nonlinear static pushover analyses of the tank using the abaqus software. In this respect, a fractional factorial design and an analysis of variance (ANOVA) have been adopted. The results indicate that the considered modeling parameters have significant effects on the uplift behavior of the tank. The fragility curves of two critical failure modes, i.e., the buckling of the shell plate and the plastic rotation of the shell-to-bottom plate joint, are then developed based on a simplified model of the tank, where the uplift behavior is correctly modeled from the static pushover analysis. The uncertainty associated with the significant parameters previously identified are considered in the fragility analysis using a sampling procedure to generate statistically significant samples of the model. The relative importance of different treatment levels of the uncertainty on the fragility curves of the tank is assessed and discussed in detail.


Author(s):  
Swapnali Sachin Kulkarni

Abstract: Vulnerability assessment of the structure is the most important and wide area of research which requires more input from the engineers and seismologist. The seismic vulnerability assessment of the structure can be evaluated by developing Fragility curves. Fragility curves shows the conditional probability of the structure exceeding the particular performance limit of the given damage state during strong ground motions. Fragility curves can be developed for different parameters like spectral displacement (Sd), spectral acceleration (Sa) Peak ground acceleration (PGA) , Inter storey drift ratio (IDR) etc. This paper describes about the different methods used in deriving the Fragility curves like conventional methods, Nonlinear Dynamic analysis methods and Nonlinear Static analysis methods. Also the fragility analysis of 5 Storied Steel Moment Resisting Frame (SMRF) has been carried out based on the parameters suggested by HAZUS M.H 2.1. Nonlinear static pushover analysis of the frame has been carried out in ETABS2016. Fragility curves are developed based on the pushover analysis results. The damage states defined as per HAZUS are Slight damage (SD), Moderate damage (MD) Extensive damage (ED) and Complete damage (CD). After carrying out the fragility analysis for the steel SMRF, it has been found out that, as the spectral displacement increases probability of failure for the slight damage of the structure is very high and the probability of failure for the complete damage is very low. Hence the probability of failure of the structure reduces from slight damage to complete damage. Keywords: Fragility curves, vulnerability assessment, Nonlinear static pushover analysis, HAZUS M.H 2.1.


2020 ◽  
pp. 136943322097728
Author(s):  
Haoran Yu ◽  
Weibin Li

Reduced web section (RWS) connections and welded flange plate (WFP) connections can both effectively improve the seismic performance of a structure by moving plastic hinges to a predetermined location away from the column face. In this paper, two kinds of steel frames—with RWS connections and WFP connections—as well as different frames with welded unreinforced flange connections were studied through seismic fragility analysis. The numerical simulation was conducted by using multiscale FE modelling. Based on the incremental dynamic analysis and pushover analysis methods, probabilistic seismic demand analysis and seismic capability analysis were carried out, respectively. Finally, combined with the above analysis results, probabilistic seismic fragility analysis was conducted on the frame models. The results showed that the RWS connection and WFP connection (without double plates) have little influence on reducing the maximum inter-storey drift ratio under earthquake action. RWS connections slightly reduce the seismic capability in non-collapse stages and improve the seismic collapse resistance of a structure, which exhibits good structural ductility. WFP connections can comprehensively improve the seismic capability of a structure, but the seismic collapse resistance is worse than that of RWS connections when the structure has a large number of storeys. The frame with WFP connections has a lower failure probability at every seismic limit state, while the frame with RWS connections sacrifices some of its structural safety in non-collapse stages to reduce the collapse probability.


Author(s):  
Hoang Nam Phan ◽  
Fabrizio Paolacci ◽  
Silvia Alessandri ◽  
Phuong Hoa Hoang

Liquid steel storage tanks are strategic structures for industrial facilities and have been widely used both in nuclear and non-nuclear power plants. Typical damage to tanks occurred during past earthquakes such as cracking at the bottom plate, elastic or elastoplastic buckling of the tank wall, failure of the ground anchorage system, and sloshing damage around the roof, etc. Due to their potential and substantial economic losses as well as environmental hazards, implementations of seismic isolation and energy dissipation systems have been recently extended to liquid storage tanks. Although the benefits of seismic isolation systems have been well known in reducing seismic demands of tanks; however, these benefits have been rarely investigated in literature in terms of reduction in the probability of failure. In this paper, A vulnerability-based design approach of a sliding concave bearing system for an existing elevated liquid steel storage tank is presented by evaluating the probability of exceeding specific limit states. Firstly, nonlinear time history analyses of a three-dimensional stick model for the examined case study are performed using a set of ground motion records. Fragility curves of different failure modes of the tank are then obtained by the well-known cloud method. In the following, a seismic isolation system based on concave sliding bearings is proposed. The effectiveness of the isolation system in mitigating the seismic response of the tank is investigated by means of fragility curves. Finally, an optimization of design parameters for sliding concave bearings is determined based on the reduction of the tank vulnerability or the probability of failure.


1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 755-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A. Fazal ◽  
R. Rai ◽  
G.C. Joshi
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Felix Figaschewsky ◽  
Arnold Kühhorn

With increasing demands for reliability of modern turbomachinery blades the quantification of uncertainty and its impact on the designed product has become an important part of the development process. This paper aims to contribute to an improved approximation of expected vibration amplitudes of a mistuned rotor assembly under certain assumptions on the probability distribution of the blade’s natural frequencies. A previously widely used lumped mass model is employed to represent the vibrational behavior of a cyclic symmetric structure. Aerodynamic coupling of the blades is considered based on the concept of influence coefficients leading to individual damping of the traveling wave modes. The natural frequencies of individual rotor blades are assumed to be normal distributed and the required variance could be estimated due to experiences with the applied manufacturing process. Under these conditions it is possible to derive the probability distribution of the off-diagonal terms in the mistuned equations of motions, that are responsible for the coupling of different circumferential modes. Knowing these distributions recent limits on the maximum attainable mistuned vibration amplitude are improved. The improvement is achieved due to the fact, that the maximum amplification depends on the mistuning strength. This improved limit can be used in the development process, as it could partly replace probabilistic studies with surrogate models of reduced order. The obtained results are verified with numerical simulations of the underlying structural model with random mistuning patterns based on a normal distribution of individual blade frequencies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendon M. Nickerson ◽  
Anriëtte Bekker

Abstract Full-scale measurements were conducted on the port side propulsion shaft the S.A. Agulhas II during the 2019 SCALE Spring Cruise. The measurements included the shaft torque captured at two separate measurement locations, and the shaft rotational speed at one measurement location. The ice-induced propeller moments are estimated from the full-scale shaft responses using two inverse models. The first is a published discrete lumped mass model that relies on regularization due to the inverse problem being ill-posed. This model is only able to make use of the propulsion shaft torque as inputs. The second model is new and employs modal superposition to represent the propulsion shaft as a combination of continuous modes, resulting in a well-posed problem. This new model requires the additional measurement of the shaft rotational speed for the inverse solution. The continuous model is shown to be more consistent and efficient, which allows its use in real-time monitoring of propeller moments.


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