Centrifuge and Numerical Modeling of the Seismic Response of Buried Water Supply Reservoirs
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 3
Abstract
Buried water reservoirs are increasingly being built to replace open aboveground municipal water supply reservoirs in urban areas to enhance water quality and utilize their surface footprint for other purposes such as public parks or placement of solar arrays. Many of these lifeline structures are in seismically active regions and, as such, need to be designed to remain operational after severe earthquake shaking. However, evaluating their seismic response is challenging and involves accounting for the interaction of the structure with the stored fluid and the retained soil; in other words, accounting for fluid–structure–soil interaction (FSSI). This paper presents a combined experimental–numerical study on the seismic behavior of buried water reservoirs while considering FSSI. Two series of centrifuge model tests were performed at different reservoir orientations to investigate one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) motion effects under full, half-full, and empty reservoir conditions. Corresponding numerical models were developed whereby the structure and the soil were represented by continuum Lagrangian finite elements, while the fluid was modeled via Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian formulation. Soil–structure and fluid–structure interface parameters were calibrated using the experimental measurements. The simulations successfully captured the measured reservoir responses in terms of accelerations, bending moment increments, and water pressures. The study found that the common assumption of plane strain is not applicable for reservoirs because their behavior was found to be truly three-dimensional (3D) whereby stresses accumulated at the corners. Furthermore, the full reservoir resulted in the highest seismic demands in the reservoir walls and roof while the empty reservoir yielded the highest base slippage. The study demonstrates that the complex reservoir seismic response is best captured by carrying out a 3D FSSI numerical simulation.
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Data Availability Statement
All experimental data are curated in DesignSafe and soon to be released along with an extensive report. Some or all numerical models or codes that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding provided by the National Science Foundation under Grants CMMI-1763129 and CMMI-1762749. The centrifuge facility at UC Davis is part of the NSF Natural Hazards Research Infrastructure (NHERI) program under Award CMMI-2037883. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors thank the UC Davis Center for Geotechnical Modeling Associate Director Dr. Dan Wilson and staff (Tom Kohnke, Anatoliy Ganchenko, and Chad Justice) for making the experiments presented in this paper possible.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 150 • Issue 3 • March 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 14, 2023
Accepted: Oct 4, 2023
Published online: Dec 26, 2023
Published in print: Mar 1, 2024
Discussion open until: May 26, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Centrifuge models
- Earthquake engineering
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Geotechnical engineering
- Hydraulic engineering
- Hydraulic structures
- Models (by type)
- Municipal water
- Numerical models
- Reservoirs
- Seismic effects
- Seismic tests
- Tests (by type)
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Water quality
- Water supply
- Water treatment
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