| Summary: | Due to demand of tightness, the liquid tanks should be designed with particular care. In addition to the liquid pressure, the imposed concrete strains and thermal actions should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the verification of the ULS in persistent design situation only is not sufficient. The crack control both in persistent situation as well as in early age transient one is necessary for determination of the reinforcement. In the beginning of the design process some assumptions, influencing the future tank performance must be made. First, the tightness class must be chosen, followed by formulation of conditions for crack width control. Next, the critical age of concrete, proper for early age transient situation should be assumed. This age determines the value of imposed strain on the one hand and the effective tensile concrete strength on the other. Then, it should be decided, if any reduction of the effective tensile strength would be applied (reduction associated with nonuniform imposed strain and reduction due to cracking under other combination of actions). Eventually, the decisions for structural analysis should be made, concerning the values of combination factors for actions both for ultimate and cracking limit state and the possible reduction of cross-section stiffness due to cracking caused by thermal actions in ULS. The above-mentioned assumptions are listed and discussed in the paper. On the basis of the discussion the algorithm for crack control in concrete tanks is worked out and proposed. The issues are illustrated with practical example of cylindrical tank for liquid.
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