INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING, VOL.

17,159-170 (1981)

FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF

EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING
IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS
MOHAMMAD ASLAMt
Bechtel Power Corporation, San Francisco, U.S.A.

SUMMARY
A finite element analysisto predict the sloshingdisplacementsand hydrodynamic pressures in liquid-filled
tanks subjected to earthquake ground motions is presented. Finite element equations were derived using
the Galerkin formulation, and the predicted results were checked against the test data, showing a good
agreement between the test and finite element results.

INTRODUCTION
The motion of liquids with a free surface is of great concern in aerospace and civil engineering
fields, as exemplified by applications to fuel sloshing in liquid propellant vehicles and seismic
loads on dams, liquid storage tanks, and offshore structures. An estimate of the free surface
displacements in storage tanks during earthquakes is also important to minimize any damage to
the tank caps. Recently there has been a great deal of interest in water-structure interaction in
nuclear power plants.
This investigation was initiated as a result of a concern expressed by the designers of nuclear
reactors regarding the sloshing response of water in pressure-suppression pools of boiling water
reactors (BWR). The main object of this study was to predict the water surface displacements
and hydrodynamic pressures during an earthquake and check the analysed results with test data.
This is necessary to ensure that the surface displacements are not excessive to the point of
causing an escape of superheated radioactive steam.
Hydrodynamic pressures in tanks during earthquake is another important concern and
therefore has been dealt with in this study as well. The earlier study of dynamic effects in
cylindrical tanks concerning the transient response was carried out by Jacobson and A ~ r e and
~
considered the cylindrical tanks to be rigid structures fixed at the base. Bauers3 analysis deals
with sloshing in annular tanks under steady-state harmonic excitations only and cannot be
applied directly to arbitrary ground motions. More recent work of Veletsos and Yang considers
the cylindrical tanks under earthquake loading and does not apply to the present case.
Previous work on the finite element analysis of sloshing in tanks was done by Edwards, in
which the shell theory was used for the prediction of seismic stresses and displacements in a
cylindrical tank filled with liquid, but the sloshing was not considered in this analysis.

Senior Engineer; fo~merly,Associate Engineer, Department of Civil Engineering,University of California, Berkeley,

California, U.S.A.

0029-598 1/8 1/020159-12$01 .OO Received 29 October 1979

@ 1981 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Revised 28 February 1980
159
160 M. ASLAM

Finite element analysis for liquid sloshing problems by Luk" gives only the mode shapes and
frequencies in an elastic container. His analysis is based on the variational principle suggested by
Tong and Pain."
In the present analysis, a finite element formulation is presented to predict the sloshing
displacements and hydrodynamic pressures in axisymmetric tanks due to arbitrary ground
motions. The flexibility of the tank has been neglected in this analysis as this would have a small
effect on the response. This is particularly true for General Electric Mark I1 and Mark I11
suppression pools which have thick concrete walls. Also, the nonlinear sloshing problem has
been linearized4 for this analysis.
The finite element equations were first derived for a completely general three-dimensional
problem and then were specialized to an axisymmetric tank subjected to arbitrary horizontal
ground motions. These equations were derived using the Galerkin principle.'
To verify the accuracy of the finite element results, a comparison was made with test results
from a one-fifteenth scale model tests on a Mark I11 suppression ~ 0 0 1 and ' ~ a good agreement
was found between the test and predicted results.

MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION
Consider a tank of arbitrary shape with rigid walls filled with a liquid whose free surface area is
B2, as shown in Figure 1. B1 represents the surface area of liquid in contact with the solid
boundary of the container, V is the volume of the liquid, and S is the surface water displacement
with respect to the undisturbed surface. Assuming that the displacements are small and the fluid
is incompressible and inviscid, the velocity potential (b exists at every point in V and must satisfy

f 8 % WATER DISPLACEMENT

ELEVATION

+X
Y
f

Figure 1. Tank of arbitrary shape filled with liquid

 EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS 161

the Laplace equation which in rectangular co-ordinates can be written as

a24 a24 a24
-+7+-=0
ax2 ay az
where = 4(x,y, z, t ) .
Equation (1) will be solved by the finite element method subject to the appropriate
time-dependent boundary conditions, as specified below.

Boundary conditions
Let v,(t) be the velocity of the tank wall along its outward normal n, then

-a4
=v,(t) onB1
an
It can also be shown that a liquid particle on the free surface B2 must satisfy the following two
condition^:^
a4 -_-
- a4 as as
as a+ +--+-=o (3)
ax ax a2 ay ay at
and
gs +-+-[
a4 1 (84 + (
--)2 ;)2 + ($ ) 2 ] =0
(4)
at 2 ax
where g is the acceleration of gravity.
Equations (3)and (4),which represent the nonlinear free surface boundary conditions, can be
simplified and combined into one boundary condition by neglecting higher order terms and
eliminating 6. This single linearized boundary condition4 can be written as follows:
1 a24 a4
- ~ + - = 0 onB2
g at az

FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION

Derivation of finite element equations

The necessary formulation follows the Galerkin principle, where the unknown field variable 4
be approximated as
N
c
4 = N , b , y, 2)4j(t)
1
(6)

in which Nj are the shape functions and q+(t)are the time-dependent nodal values of the field
variable 4. For a typical node i, substituting equation (6) into equations (l), (2) and ( 5 ) and
equating the weighted and integrated interior and boundary residual, we have
162' M. ASLAM

in which j d u and ids represent the integrals over the volume and appropriate surfaces,
respectively.
Applying the divergence theorem, and rewriting equation (7), we get

in which & = d24/dt2, B = BS + B2 and I, I,, and 1, are direction cosines.

If small slopes are assumed, then

Using the above approximation, equation (8) can be reduced to the following form:

or
M&+K#=F (11)
in which the elements of matrices M, K and F are given by

where summation for Mij covers only the elements on the free surface with areas EB2.
Summation for Kii covers the contribution of each fluid element and EV is the element region.
EBS refers only to the elements which lie on the solid boundary BS, and the loading term thus is
associated with the elements that lie on the tank wall boundary. The free surface matrix M and
the fluid matrix K are comparable to the mass and stiffness matrices, respectively, used in
structural mechanics.

Isoparametric formulation for axisymmetric tank under arbitrary horizontal ground motions
The following analysis will be restricted to rigid tanks which are symmetrical about the z-axis
and are subjected to arbitrary horizontal ground motions alone. Since equation (SO) involves
only the first derivatives of shape functions, a 4-node quadrilateral element with linear
interpolation functions will satisfy the convergence requirements. However, 4-to-8 variable
node isoparametric element13 has greater flexibility in accommodating the curved boundaries
and thus has been used in the present formulation.
 EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS 163

Figure 2(a) shows such a 4-to-8 variable node element lying in the x-z plane, where z is the
axis of symmetry. The co-ordinate transformation between the bi-unit square and the curvi-
linear element is given by (Fig. 2(b)):

in which (xirn,zim)are the global co-ordinates of node i in element m,and hiare the interpolation
function^.'^
z
4

(a) TWO-DIMENSIONAL ELEMENT IN GLOBAL X - Z SYSTEM

S
4

(b) 81-UNIT SQUARE IN LOCAL r-S SYSTEM

Figure 2. Two-dimensional mapping of an isoparametric eiement
164 M. ASLAM

Since a horizontal ground motion will excite only the antisymmetric modes (in the linearized
case) of sloshing in an axisymmetric tank, we can approximate the velocity potential by the
following equation:

in which &,is the value of the velocity potential at node i of element m.

If equation (17) is used in equation (14) to calculate the loadhg vector, the integral will be
non-zero only when n = 1 in the case of horizontal ground motion alone. Therefore equation
(17) can be written as
8
+ m ( r * S, 8, t ) = C hi(r, $1 cos 8
i=l
* +im(t) (18)
and

in which pm(r,s) contains the derivatives of interpolation functions. Using the chain rule of
differentiation:

by inverting

in which Ji is the inverse of the Jacobian matrix in equation (20). Substituting equation (19)
into equation (21), we obtain

in which

Thus
 EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS 165

Free surface (mass)matrix for axisymmetric element

The complete mass matrix for the system is formed by direct summation of
l n
M=- C Mm
g m=l

where n is the number of free surface elements and the element mass matrix M,,, is given by

For the axisymmetric case consider a free surface element with nodes i and j (Figure 3) and let
r = local co-ordinates for free surface boundary element
R (r) = radius to any point r between node i and j
L = length of the elements

Figure 3. Free surface element (asixymmetric case)

Then we can write the following transformation:

R ( r )= [(l-r/L r/L][ xi]

xi

ds = R ( r )dr d0
Thus
N = [(l-r/L) r/L] cos 8

Substituting equations (28) and (29) into equation (26), we get

166 M. ASLAM

Evaluation of fluid (stiffness)matrix for axisymmetric element

The complete system stiffness matrix is formed by direct summation of element matrices, i.e.

K= C Km
m=l

where n is the number of fluid elements and the element matrix Km is given by

K, =I, cos2 0BfB, d v (32)

For an axisymmetric element, dv = R d0 dr, the volume integral then becomes

(33)

where R is the radius of any point and A, is the area of element m.

Load vector for axisymmetric element

The loading vector F for the complete system is given by

F= N z v , ds (34)
m=l EBl

where summation is over all the n elements which are at the liquid-solid interface.
Consider a typical liquid-solid boundary element with nodes i and j and let r be a local
co-ordinate, as shown in Figure 4 . Let R ( r )be the radius at any point r, and let L be the length of
the element:

R ( r ) = [ ( l - r / L ) r/L][x'] (35)
Xi

N = [( 1 - r / L ) r / L ] cos 8
ds = R ( r ) dr d 0

Figure 4. Boundary element at liquid-solid interface (axisymmetric case)

 EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS 167

If 0, = horizontal ground velocity in the x-direction then v,, = ox cos 8 . cos $, where $ =
tan- (xi -xj/zi -ti); then

F, = 0, lolo [
L 2Tr
(1 - r/L)
4 / L ][(1 --r/L) r / L ] [xi] cos 8 . cos $ d 8 dr
Xi
(37)

Implementation of finite element equations

The discretization of the continuum into finite elements and the assemblage of free surface,
liquid and loading element matrices results in a set of linear, coupled, second order, ordinary
differential equations. In this study, Newmarks step by step integration method with /3 = 1/6,
was used.14 A computer code was developed in which the earthquake input can either be as an
accelerogram or a displacement time-history, digitized in the appropriate format. The program
derives the velocity time-history by integration or differentiation depending upon the type of
ground motion input. The earthquake input must be properly adjusted for baseline correction
such that at the end of earthquake, as acceleration goes to zero, the ground velocity and
displacement also go to zero.
The effective equilibrium equations are solved using the linear equation solver COLSOL
Reference 15, and the sloshing displacements and hydrodynamic impulse pressures at time
t + At were determined as follows:
1 .
Sloshing displacement = --#t+at
g
Impulsive pressure pt+A,I
=

Sample analyses and comparison with test data

Figure 5 shows the finite element mesh layout for an 8 ft diameter annular tank model. The
annular tank chosen for this analysis is a simplified one-fifteenth scale model of a pressure-
suppression pool of Boiling Water Reactor G E Mark 111. This analysis was carried out to check
the accuracy of the finite element model against precise test data. A finer mesh size has been
used near the free water surfaces because that is where the maximum sloshing displacements
occur.
In Figure 5 the x-axis is taken at the bottom of the tank and the z-axis is the axis of symmetry
of the annular tank. There are a total of 25, 10 and 17 elements in group Nos. 1, 2 and 3,
respectively. Group No. 1 contains 4-to-8 node fluid elements, whereas group Nos. 2 and 3
contain the free surface elements and liquid-solid interface elements, respectively, with 2 nodes
each. There are a total of 52 nodes in this mesh. The finite element analysis was done using the
digitized accelerogram recorded in tests performed on a 20 x 20 ft shaking table which can
simulate earthquake motions. The details of these tests and a mathematical solution of the
sloshing response limited to the annular and cylindrical tanks only is reported elsewhere.16 A
comparison of measured and predicted results is given in Figures 6 and 7.
Figure 6 shows a comparison of the sloshing displacements at node 2 between the finite
element solution and the test data under the same ground motion. The results are shown for the
first 6 sec, and it can be seen that there is close agreement between the test and finite element
results.
Figure 7 shows a comparison of impulsive pressures between the measured and finite element
results, and it can be seen again that the agreement between the two is excellent with test results
consistently 5-10 per cent higher compared with the finite element solution, indicating a
168 M. ASLAM

, F
NODE 52

Figure 5. Finite element mesh for annular tank model

0.25 I I
1.10
+
-
-c-z
Y

5 0
u
4
5
0
1.10
W W V
0 I 2 3 4 5 6
TIME (SECONDS)

Figure 6. Comparisonof sloshing displacements between the test and finite element results at node 2 (test 211276.1) in
annular tank model (inner radius = 33.2 in., outer radius = 48.0 in., depth of water = 16 in.) under simulated El Centro
1940 earthquake, time scale = 415 = 3.9, peak shaking table acceleration = 0.24 g horizontal, 0.0 g vertical
 EARTHQUAKE-INDUCED SLOSHING IN AXISYMMETRIC TANKS 169

w
U
3
W O
s,
5$

.0.11

possible error of calibration of pressure gauge and some error due to electrical noise. This
comparison is given at node 52 (Figure 5 ) .

CONCLUSIONS
A good correlation between the test and computer results shows that the finite element
technique presented here can successfullypredict the sloshing displacements and hydrodynamic
pressures in fluid-filled rigid tanks under arbitrary ground motions. The linearized small
displacement theory is satisfactory for predicting the sloshing response in pressure-suppression
pools of boiling water reactors due to strong-motion earthquakes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is part of the authors dissertation submitted to the University of California,
Berkeley, in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Civil Engineering. The author is thankful to Professors W. G. Godden, E. L. Wilson and C. D.
Mote for advising and serving on his dissertation committee.

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motions, Bull. Seism. SOC.Am. 41 (1951).
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Mech., 19(3), (1952).
3. H. F. Bauer, The Dynamic Behavior of Liquids in Moving Containers (Ed. N. Abramson), National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, Washington, D.C., 1966.
170 M. ASLAM

4. J. J. Stoker, Water Waves, Interscience, New York, 1957.

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