The Effect of Water Tank Load Position on the Seismic Response of Pile-Supported Concrete High-Rise Buildings

Analyzing the seismic response of multi-story buildings in detail has gained increasing attention, with the main issue being whether and how to account for the Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) effect during this analysis. In this study, a numerical investigation was conducted to examine how the different positions of water tank loading affect a 15-story reinforced concrete building on a piled foundation. Three different water tank load distributions were applied at various locations on the building. For the seismic analysis, the ground acceleration caused by the James RD El Centro earthquake (1979), with a Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) of 0.5502 g, was used as a representative dynamic load. It was found that the presence of the distributed load on the top floor increased the induced acceleration compared to the first floor. That is, the maximum acceleration on the top floor rose from 40.32% when the load covered only a quarter of the floor area to 41.62% when the load extended across the entire floor. A slight increase of about 12.5% and 22.2% was observed when the load distribution area grew from a quarter to half and a full floor area, respectively. The maximum column load showed a limited increase when the water load was partially or fully distributed on the top floor, while the maximum shear force and bending moment were only slightly affected.