Abstract: | The bulging observed on the wall of a ground supported cylindrical storage tank, located at the Chiba Experimental Station of the University of Tokyo, is investigated. This damage is correlated with a ground motion recording obtained very near the tank base during a moderately strong earthquake that occurred on September 25, 1980 not far from the Chiba Experimental Station. From this correlation the importance of the horizontal excitation in amplitude and direction is clearly established. In addition, good agreement can be seen between the predicted tank wall earthquake performance, derived by an empirical approach proposed by the first author, and the shell deformation observed at the Chiba Experimental Station. |