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The Finite Element Technique

An efficient finite element technique was developed by the proposal investigators in a four-year-research effort that was funded by NSF and NCEER. The study investigated the effects of liquid hydrodynamic pressures exerted on thin-walled liquid storage tanks during earthquake motions. The study addressed the complexities involved in the analysis of such tanks including the successive contact and separation between base plates and foundations, large amplitude deformations of base plates, pre- and post-buckling behavior of shells, material yielding, soil-tank interaction, and large-amplitude free surface sloshing. The main outcome of the study was the finite element code DYNAZ, which was designed to efficiently handle liquid-structure systems including the effect of soil-structure interaction.

• Description of the Finite Element Code DYNAZ
• Variational Principles of the Liquid-Structure Interaction Problem
• Modeling of Geometric Nonlinearity in Tank Shell and Base Plate