Structural damage detection of elevated circular water tank and its supporting system using geodetic techniques

Water is the main source of daily life for everyone and everywhere in the world. Sufficient water distribution depends on the place and design of water tank in certain areas. Water storage tanks are relatively flexible structures and they can tolerate greater settlements than other engineering structures. Deformation of tanks may cause severe damages to tank or even loss of life and injury to people, so monitoring the structural deformation and dynamic response of water tank and its supporting system to the large variety of external loadings has a great importance for maintaining tank safety and economical design of manmade structures. This paper presents an accurate geodetic observations technique to investigate the inclination of an elevated circular water tank and the deformation of its supporting structural system (supporting columns and circular horizontal beams) using reflector-less total station. The studied water tank was designed to deliver water to around 55000 person and has a storage capacity about 750 m3. Due to the studied water tank age, a non-uniform settlement of tank foundation and movement of pumps and electric machines under tank’s body will cause stress and strain for tanks membrane and settlement of sediments. So the studied water tank can tend to experience movement vertically, horizontally or both. Three epochs of observations were done (July 2014, September 2014 and December 2014). The results of the practical measurements, calculations and analysis of the interesting deformation of the studied elevated tanks and its supporting system using least squares theory and computer programs are presented. As a results of monitoring the water storage tank, circular reinforced concrete beams and columns at three monitoring epochs. The body of water storage tank has an inclination to the east direction and the value of inclination is increased with the time.