INTERACTION ANALYSIS FOR OIL STORAGE TANK ON MARINE CLAY

Abstract

The engineering behavior of marine clay is very different than that of the moist and dry clay
because of its structural and mineral composition [1]. Marine structure is subjected to the waves which create
a cyclic stresses inside the soil mass [2]. The huge storage tanks experiences a heavy wind and current load
which produces a adverse effect in the soil settlements. In this paper a cylindrical reinforced cement concrete
tank with diameter 100 m and 40 m height founded on soft marine clay of undrained shear strength of 10 kPa
is considered for the analysis. The huge pile group is modeled by equivalent pier method and interaction
factor method for the full and empty loading conditions. Settlement including the soil pile interaction has
been estimated for both the cases mentioned above for different pile configuration including pile length,
diameter and spacing of piles in a group. It has been observed that the spacing of the piles plays a vital role in
estimating the settlements and stresses. With the comparison of the equivalent pier method (EPM) [8] and
interaction factor method (IFM) for settlement estimation, the later is found to be more suitable for
interaction analysis to achieve the safety of the tank.