Effect of MetaFoundation on the Seismic Responses of Liquid Storage Tanks

Abstract

Cylindrical liquid storage tanks are vital lifeline structures, playing a critical role in industry and human life. Damages to these structures during previous earthquakes indicate their vulnerability against seismic events. A novel strategy to reduce the seismic demands in the structures is the use of metamaterials, being periodically placed in the foundation, called MetaFoundation (MF). The periodic configuration of metamaterials can create a stop band, leading to a decrease in wave propagation in the foundation. The aim of this paper is to study the effect of MF on the dynamic behaviour of liquid storage tanks. To that end, the governing equations of motion of the liquid storage tank equipped with MF are derived and solved in the time domain to obtain the time history of the responses under a set of ground motions. Then, the peak responses of tanks, mounted on MF, are compared with the corresponding responses in the fixed base condition. Besides, a parametric study is performed to assess the effect of the predominant frequency of earthquakes, the number of layers of metamaterials, the thickness of soft material, and the damping ratios of soft material on the performance of the MF. The obtained results indicate that the MF improves the dynamic behaviour of the squat tank, in which the mean ratio of responses using MF to the ones in the fixed base conditions equals 0.551 for impulsive displacement, overturning moment, and base shear.

Study on the Influence of Earthquakes with Different Frequency Content on the Peak Liquid Sloshing Wave Height of Liquid Storage Tank

“…In severe destructive earthquake disasters, liquid storage tanks will not only cause severe direct damage, but also will be highly likely to induce more serious secondary disasters. For example, a large number of oil storage tanks were damaged and caused explosions and fires in the 1994 Niigata earthquake in Japan, a large number of water storage tanks were damaged in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China, causing drinking difficulties for residents, and the leakage of nuclear material storage tanks at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in the 2011 earthquake in Japan has now threatened the global ecological environment, etc [2][3][4]. The liquid medium in the storage tank will generate hydrodynamic pressure under the action of seismic force, compared with other solid structures, the damage mechanism of liquid storage tank under seismic force is relatively more complex.…”

Meta-Material Layout for the Blast Protection of Above-Ground Steel Pipes

“…The development of a non-linear periodic foundation for the same purpose has been conducted recently [17], placing roller bearings between the concrete layers of the foundation. The contribution of the meta-material concepts to the enhancement of the response of EIs towards seismic hazards was demonstrated via the concept of the meta-foundation [18,19], which was designed for the protection of fuel and liquid storage tanks, showing great results also at the experimental level [20]. Another concept related to geotechnical engineering was the periodic piles barrier.…”

Theoretical and experimental studies on vibration attenuation for squirrel cage by metamaterial belt structure

“…In recent years, the locally resonant metamaterial was widely applied to control the vibration of practical machinery, for example, the rotor system (Basone et al, 2019; Farajian et al, 2022; Franchini et al, 2020; Yan et al, 2022). In this study, to control the vibration of a rotor system of aero-engine, we design a metamaterial structure for the squirrel cage elastic support of the rotor.…”