Seismic fragility assessment for liquid storage tanks using FERUM integrated with ABAQUS

Abstract

Earthquakes are one of the natural disasters that are able to cause both casualties and huge economic losses. In particular, damage of structures in industrial complexes owing to seismic loads may lead to leakage of hazardous materials or to explosions and structural collapse. Therefore, estimating seismic fragility of industrial facilities in advance by considering uncertainty is essential, so that emergency actions can be taken, and the extent of such disastrous effects can be minimized. First Order Reliability Method (FORM) is a common reliability analysis method that calculates the probability of structural failure in a given seismic circumstance. Using FORM, a seismic fragility curve, which is a probabilistic indicator of structural safety against earthquakes, can be derived. However, it is also required to perform reliability analysis in conjunction with sophisticated finite element (FE) analysis for the results to be accurate. In this study, reliability analysis software known as Finite Element Reliability Using Matlab (FERUM), is integrated with commercial FE software, ABAQUS. The integration of these two software packages makes exchanging input and output data of reliability and FE analyses possible towards the calculation of failure probability. In this research, the software integration methodology is employed to assess the seismic fragility of a liquid storage tank, which is an important component of industrial complexes.