D19/1

CYLINDRICAL CONCRETE WATER TANKS: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

V Thevendran and D P Thambiratnam

Senior Lecturers
Department of Civil Engineering
National University of Singapore
10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 0511

Summary: The minimum weight design of circular cylindrical

concrete water tanks is studied in this paper. The internal
radius and height of a tank are maintained constant while the
thickness of the wall is varied along the axis so that the
bending (tensile) and hoop stresses attain values as close as
possible to their respective allowable values. Only the
piecewise linear variations of wall thickness are
considered. For the analysis a numerical procedure which
combines the Runge-Kutta method of solution of ordinary
differential equations with a numerical minimization method
is used. This procedure is then imbedded into a minimization
routine to deal with the design problems.

1. INTRODUCTION

The paper considers the minimum weight designs of

circular cylindrical concrete water tanks with fixed internal
radius and height. Minimum weight designs may not always be
the most economical ones. However such a design is the
preliminary step towards seeking the most economical one.
The designs studied are subject to constraints that the
bending (tensile) stresses and hoop stresses should not
exceed certain prescribed values and that the thickness of
the wall should not be less than a prescribed value. Water
tanks are usually designed as having uniform wall
thickness. In such a design, it is very unlikely that both
critical bending and hoop stresses attain their maximum
allowable values simultaneously. Only one of these two
critical stresses would govern the final design. Since these
stresses vary along the length of the tank, the thickness of
the shell may be varied so that the stress distributions are
G. N. Pande et al. (eds.), Numerical Techniques for Engineering Analysis and Design
© Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht 1987
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as close as possible to the respective maximum allowable

values. In the present study, only piecewise linear
variations are considered as any other type of variation is
considered to be impracticable, in general. No
discontinuities in the values of the thickness along the
length of the shell are allowed. Optimal design of such
tanks poses problems as the governing differential equations
and corresponding boundary conditions are difficult to solve
exactly. For cylindrical tanks with constant wall thickness,
as well as for those with constant mean radius and with
thickness varying linearly from top to bottom, Timoshenko [1]
has given approximate analytical solutions to the governing
equations. However, these solutions cannot be used in the
present study as the design conditions are qualitatively
different from those considered by Timoshenko. The numerical
methods used so far in analysis of cylindrical water tanks
are the ones based on finite difference methods [2] or finite
element methods [3]. In order to achieve better convergence
of results, finer grids or meshes have to be used in these
methods. But the optimal design using a numerical
optimization procedure is iterative in nature and therefore
requires a numerical analysis procedure which gives faster
convergence. Thevendran [4] has presented a numerical
approach, which is different from these two methods, to the
analysis of circular cylindrical water tanks. The approach
is based on the Runge-Kutta method of solving initial value
problems involving ordinary differential equations, In the
problems studied, there are boundary conditions to be
satisfied at both ends of the solution domain. To solve such
problems, Runge-Kutta method can be combined with a numerical
optimization method and used. This procedure is then
imbedded in an appropriate minimization routine to deal with
optimal design of the tanks.

2. FORMULATION OF PROBLEM

2. 1 PART I: Analysis

The present study deals with circular cylindrical water

tanks with constant inner radius and varying outer radius.
In such a case the middle surface of the tank would not be
parallel to the axis of symmetry. If the slope of the middle
surface with the axis of symmetry is very small, then the
governing equations can be derived in the same way as those
for a tank with middle surface of constant radius.

Figure 1 shows an element of the cylindrical tank with

usual notation. Only the nonzero stress resultants in the
axisymmetric problem studied herein are indicated on the
element. Symbols M, Nand Q denote bending moment, direct