Why Does My New Concrete Tank Leak?

Relatively massive concrete walls have been used for over a 100 years in a variety of environmental engineering concrete structures. Even with over a century of experience in design and construction of concrete liquid-containing structures (LCS), we still see new tanks leak. This may happen on the first filling or after a couple of seasonal cycles. Why after all the decades of experience do many of our concrete tanks still leak? We will look at the impact of many factors in design, material selection and construction of concrete liquid-containing tanks on the cracking and resulting leakage. We also identify pertinent design aspects of the ACI 350-06 Code Requirements for Environmental Engineering Concrete Structures. Also, we use decades of design, construction and evaluation experience in liquid-containing structures to identify common problems with specifications, materials and construction techniques that can cause excessive cracking and leakage.