Simulation for a Floating Roof Behavior of Cylindrical Storage Tank due to Wind Load: Part 2 — Sloshing Response Analysis

The floating roofs are used in large cylindrical storage tanks to prevent evaporation of oil. The single-deck floating roof, considered herein, consists of a thin circular plate called “deck” attached to a buoyant ring of box-shaped cross section called “pontoon”. The deck plates are deformed to create waves and they are subjected to cyclic bending due to wind load. This phenomenon may lead to initiate fatigue cracks at the welding joints. It is important to know the vibration characteristics of the waves in the deck plate. The authors have reported a CFD analysis of a cylindrical storage tank due to uniform wind flow in another paper. This paper presents the axisymmetric finite element analysis for the sloshing response of the single-deck floating roofs in a cylindrical storage tank subjected to wind load obtained by the CFD analysis. It is assumed that the liquid is incompressible and inviscid, and the roof is linear elastic while the sidewall and the bottom are rigid. The basic vibration characteristics of the waves in the deck plate, such as frequency and amplitude, are investigated.