Stochastic modelling of spatiotemporal earthquake fields for large cylindrical shell tanks

Past earthquakes have shown that shell tanks are very vulnerable to seismic damage. Besides other aspects, the earthquake-resistant design of such structures might require a detailed knowledge on the variation of seismic excitation in space and time. The aim of the present paper is to analyse a method of conditional stochastic simulation of ground motions for large cylindrical shell tanks using the spatiotemporal correlation function. The method has been used to generate unknown time histories at various structural supports based on the specified earthquake record at one location. Then, the input ground motion records have been applied to conduct a dynamic analysis of the response of a shell tank. The results of the study indicate that the incorporation of the seismic wave propagation effect may influence the response of large tanks significantly.