Antiflotation design for water tank using pressure relief technique.

A pressure relief technique has been proposed to reduce hydrostatic pressures by opening drainage holes around a water tank. This solution is evaluated by laboratory experiments and numerical parametric investigation. After seepage flow is allowed, the hydraulic head acting on the water tank is reduced due to seepage losses. The drainage holes should be opened on the base slab near the sidewalls, and at a certain height on the sidewalls. Given a fixed total opening area, the number of drainage holes with smaller diameter should be allowed near the edge of the water tank to increase the efficacy of the approach. The properties of the surrounding soil influence the results significantly, where a cushion layer with a higher hydraulic conductivity and a greater thickness is beneficial to the stability of the water tank, and a backfill layer with adequate thickness and hydraulic conductivity should be selected. An illustrative example is given in the end to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed antiflotation design strategy compared to the conventional enhanced self-weight method, and more economic design using less reinforcement and concrete can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]