A simplified procedure to assess the dynamic pressure on large reservoirs

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the seismic analysis of large reservoirs. During an earthquake, it is known that the acceleration of the water contained in the reservoir produces an additional hydrodynamic pressure, which has a convective, a rigid and a flexible impulsive part. The two first contributions are already well-known and may therefore be easily integrated during a pre-design phase, but it is much more complicated to assess the flexible contribution, as it is influenced by the coupling between the structure and the fluid. The only consistent way seems to resort to finite elements methods, which are not always convenient at an early design stage. For this reason, some research have been undertaken to rapidly evaluate the flexible pressure acting on thick plates. The results obtained by using this simplified method have been compared to numerical solutions. The agreement was found to be quite satisfactory.