Performance of elevated tanks inMw 7.7 Bhuj earthquake of january 26th, 2001

The current designs of supporting structures of elevated water tanks are extremely vulnerable under lateral forces due to an earthquake and the Bhuj earthquake provided another illustration when a great many water tank stagings suffered damage and a few collapsed. The more popular shaft type stagings suffer from poor ductility of thin shell sections besides low redundancy and toughness whereas framed stagings consist of weak members and poor brace-column joints. A strength analysis of a few damaged shaft type stagings clearly shows that all of them either met or exceeded the strength requirements of IS:1893-1984, however, they were all found deficient when compared with requirements of the International Building Code. IS:1893-1984 is unjustifiably low for these systems which do not have the advantage of ductility and redundancy and are currently being underestimated at least by a factor of 3 and need an upward revision of forces immediately.