Modeling and Seismic Analysis of Buildings with Water Tanks on their Roof

  Abstract   The existence of containers on buildings in large cities with high earthquake risk has caused many damaging problems during past earthquakes. In addition to financial losses, it might induce uncontrolled fire, water cut and local or global failure of the structure. In this study, the dynamic interaction of water containers built on roof of structures, is investigated by means of a nonlinear software based on Finite Element Method. The tank shell and its water have been modeled as a composite system and the interaction of container and water have been examined.   This seismic control system with its limited potential capability as a tuned liquid damper (TLD) has been employed for 5 and 15-story structures, subjected to various earthquakes. The results gained from the present study can be helpful in investigating the tank’s support conditions and its installation. Based on the numerical results obtained in this paper, frequency content and other earthquake characteristics highly affect the role of water tanks on the seismic performance of lower rise buildings.