Case study of the collapse of a water tank

TL;DRAbstract

A 48.76m high water tank with the supporting steel lattice comprising 5 segments with uniform member configuration is conceived. Its collapse behavior is investigated through a suite of ground motion analyses. First, the tank is analyzed under 13 three-component ground motion records from the Chi-Chi and Hokkaido earthquakes. It is shown that the tank always collapses in the same manner as a result of overturning due to P-Delta instability resulting from column and brace buckling at the base. This is the consequence of the uniform member sizing in each of the five segments of the supporting lattice. Incremental dynamic
\nanalyses are performed using the Takatori near-source record from the 1995 Kobe earthquake. It is shown
\nthat the structure collapses at a ground motion scaling factor of 0.32. The FRAME3D model of the tank
\nreveals severe buckling in the bottom mega-columns on the west face of the tower, followed almost instantaneously
\nby compression brace buckling

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