Structural assessement and strengthening of a liquid storage tank

Sponsor:

Hellenic Petroleum SA

Beneficiary:

University of Thessaly, Greece

Objective:

This project was aimed at determining the structural condition of a liquid storage tank in a refinery, which had visible wrinkles in its wall. The tank wall surface was laser-scanned and digitized, and this enabled the development of a robust finite element model to conduct stress analysis under hydrostatic and seismic loading conditions.

Principal Investigator:

Spyros A. Karamanos

Total Budget:

18,000 Euros

Duration:

12 months (2008 - 2009)

Figures:

Figure 1: Tank with wrinkles.

Figure 2: Laser scanning of wrinkled tank.

Figure 3: Finite element model and stress analysis of wrinkled tank.