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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With

Reference To IS: 3370 2009
M. Bhandari1, Karan Deep Singh2
1

(Department of Civil Engineering, Dr B R Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, India)

2

(Graduate Civil Engineer, 94, Surya Vihar, Jalandhar, India)

ABSTRACT: The conventional method of designing water tanks which is working stress method
outlined in the previous version of IS: 3370 1965 is irrational and leads to relatively thicker sections
with a substantial amount of reinforcement. Limit state method which is widely used has been recently
adopted in the new version of IS 3370-2009 concrete structures for storage of liquids code of
practice. For quick cost prediction of tanks, this study therefore examines the cost effectiveness in terms
of amount of materials and formwork used for Circular, Square and Rectangular overhead water tanks
each of three capacities of 100kl, 150kl, 200kl and draw reasonable inferences on tanks shape design
effectiveness . Each water tank was designed by Limit State method and then the crack width was
checked by limit state of serviceability IS 3370 (2009). The results have been presented in the form of
graphs and tables and it has been observed that Circular-shaped tank consumed lesser of each
material as compared to Square and Rectangular ones. The amount of formwork required for circular
tank is also less than that for square and rectangular tanks thereby giving Circular-shaped tanks a
more favorable selection over the rectangular and square shaped tanks.
Keywords: Working stress method, limit state method, Crack width, effective cost.

I. Introduction
Safe drinking water is one of the basic elements for humans to sustain healthy life. Reinforced concrete
overhead water tanks are widely used to provide the safe drinking water. Most water supply systems in
developing countries, such as India, where urbanizing is increasing day by day rely on overhead storage tanks
and hence there is need to construct more number of water tanks. Earlier design of water tanks was being done
using the working stress method given in IS: 3370 1965. This method leads to thicker and heavily reinforced
sections. The use of limit state method of design has been adopted in the revised code IS 3370: 2009 and
provision for checking the crack width is also included in this code. This study is carried out to analyze the cost
of overhead water tanks of varying capacities and having different shapes so as to determine the most
economical shape of the tank.. This will help the designers in making the choice for their design.

II. Problem Formulation

In order to carry out the cost analysis, overhead water tanks of circular, rectangular and square shapes, which are
commonly adopted by designers, were considered for the recent study. Water tank of each shape was designed
for capacities of 100 kl, 150 kl, and 200 kl. Only the tank portion was considered in this study. The design of
all water tanks was done by limit state method as per the the provisions of the IS: 3370 2009. Each element of
water tank was also checked for crack width to ensure the proper strength and serviceability.

III. Analysis and Design

3.1 Circular Tank
The Overhead circular water tanks are built for direct distribution by gravity flow and are usually of
smaller capacities. As the circular shape has least perimeter, circular tanks are widely used.
The main structural elements of overhead circular tank are shown in Fig. 3.1 and their design
methodology is explained in the following sections.:

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
TOP DOME
TOP RING BEAM
CYLINDRICAL WALL
BOTTOM DOME
BOTTOM RING BEAM

3.1.1 Top Dome: Top dome is designed for self weight and a service live load as per provisions of the relative
CYLINDRICAL WALL
Indian Standard Codes. . The top dome is supported on the cylindrical wall. Two types of forces that is the
Meridional thrust (T) acting along the direction of meridian and the Hoop stress (H) along the latitudes
develop in the dome due to the applied loads. These are illustrated in Fig. 3.2 and 3.3 respectively.

Fig. 3.2 Frustum of spherical dome

Fig. 3.3 Vertical section of dome

Top dome is designed and checked for these two forces. As the stresses developed are very small in magnitude,
minimum reinforcement as specified in code is normally provided in the form of a mesh.

3.1.2 Top Ring Beam

Normally the domes are segmental and the meridional thrust developing at the base of the dome is at
some inclination with the horizontal . The horizontal component of the meridional thrust produces hoop tension
which is resisted by providing a ring beam at the base along the periphery of the dome. The ring beam is
supported on the cylindrical wall of the tank and is designed for direct tension.

3.1.3. Cylindrical Vertical Wall

The tank wall is supported on the bottom ring beam the walls of tank are assumed to be free at top as
well as bottom. . Due to this, the tank wall will be designed for hoop tension caused by the horizontal water
pressure, without any bending moment. The maximum hoop tension will occur at the base. The tank walls are
adequately reinforced with horizontal rings provided at both faces. In addition to this, vertical reinforcement is
provided on the both faces in the form of distribution steel. The spacing of the vertical steel is halved at the
bottom portion of the wall to cater for any bending moment.

3.1.4 Bottom Spherical Dome

The bottom dome is subjected to vertical loads consisting of self-weight and weight of water. The
weight of water over the surface of dome is calculated as

Weight of water = [ D2 H - h22 (3 R2 h2 ) ] w

4

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Where D = Inner diameter of tank
H = Height of cylindrical wall
h2 = rise of bottom spherical dome
R2 = Radius of bottom spherical dome
w = unit weight of water
3.1.5. Bottom Ring Beam
Bottom Circular beam is supported usually on columns and is designed to support the tank and its
contents. The girder should be designed for the bending moments, shear force and torsion. In addition to these
forces, it is also subjected to hoop tension due to meridional thrust of bottom spherical dome.

3.2 Over Head Square / Rectangular Water Tank

The main structural elements of a rectangular or square tank are the top slab, the side walls and the
bottom slab.
1. Top slab/ Beam
2. Side walls
3. Bottom slab/ Beam

3.2.1. Top Slab: The top slab is designed as one way continuous slab supported on beams. It is designed only
for self-weight and service live load.
3.2.2. Cylindrical Side Walls: The walls of a rectangular and square water tanks are subjected to bending
moments both in the horizontal as well as in vertical direction. The analysis of the moment in the walls is
difficult, since water pressure results in a triangular load on them. The magnitude of the moment will depend
upon the several factors such as length, breadth and height of the tank and the conditions of support of the wall
at top and bottom edges. If the length of the wall is more in comparison to its height the moments will be in the
vertical direction i.e. Panel will bend as a cantilever. If, however, height is large in comparison to length, the
moments will be in horizontal direction and panel will bend as thin slab supported on the edges. For the
intermediate conditions bending will take place both in horizontal as well as in vertical direction. In addition to
the moments, the walls are also subjected to direct pull exerted by water pressure on some portion of side walls.
The wall of the tank will thus be subjected to both bending moment as well as direct tension. The design of the
walls is done on the premise that no cracks are developed in it. Though, reinforcement is provided both for
moments as well as direct tension.
There are two method of analysis that is the approximate method and the exact analysis. In this study
exact analysis , which is based on the elastic theory, has been used. The resulting differential equations are very
difficult to be solved directly. IS 3370 1965 (Part IV) gives the table for moments and shear forces in walls for
certain edge conditions. Moment coefficients for individual panels considered fixed along vertical edges, but
having different edge conditions at top and bottom are given in table in IS 3370 (Part IV). The coefficients for
individual panels with fixed side edges apply without modification to continuous walls provided there is no
rotation about the vertical edges.
3.2.3. Floor Slab: The floor slab should be designed as two way slab supported on floor beams. Generally the
thickness of base slab is kept equal to vertical walls.
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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Check for crack width: as per given in IS 3370 2009 part 2
To be effective in distributing cracking, the amount of reinforcement provided needs to be atleast as great as
given below:
fct
crit
fy

where,crit = critical steel ratio, the minimum steel ratio, of steel area to the gross of the whole concrete section,
required to distribute the cracking .
fct = Direct tensile strength of the immature concrete which is given in IS 3370 2009 part 2
fy = characteristic strength of the reinforcement.
fct

Maximum spacing of crack Smax =

fy

fct
fy

= ratio of the tensile strength of the concrete to the average bond strength between concrete and steel which

can be taken as 2/3 for immature concrete.

= size of each reinforcing bar
Wmax = Width of fully developed crack,
T1
Wmax =Smax
2
= (Coefficient of thermal expansion of concrete) , = 1 10-5 for concrete, T = 300 C

IV. Results and Discussions

The circular, rectangular and square water tanks of different capacities were designed following the provisions
of IS 3370: 2009. The quantities of materials were calculated and have been tabulated and shown graphically in
the following section.

Tank Capacity(kl)
100
150
200

Table1: Amount of Concrete in cubic meters.

Circular O.H.T
Square O.H.T
22.834
23.04
28.274
36.86
35.689
52.83

Rectangular O.H.T
24.375
39.765
55.275

Fig 1: Comparison of Concrete quantity for 100kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank.

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Fig 2: Comparison of Concrete quantity for 150kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank.

Fig 3: Comparison of concrete quantity for 200kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Fig 4: Amount of Concrete against Tank Capacity

Tank Capacity(kl)
100
150
200

Table 2: Amount of Reinforcement in kilograms

Circular O.H.T
Square O.H.T
1234.669
3566.7
1816.71
5772.955
2422
7696.549

Rectangular O.H.T
4129.74
6038.77
8201.123

Fig 5. Comparison of Reinforcement quantity for 100kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Fig 6. Comparison of Reinforcement quantity for 150kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank

Fig 7. Comparison of Reinforcement quantity for 200kl Capacity water tank with respect to shape of tank

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Fig 8:.Amount of Reinforcement against Tank Capacity

Tank Capacity(kl)
100
150
200

Table 3: Amount of Formwork in square meters

Circular O.H.T
Square O.H.T
275.8
278.97
344
367.65
411.7
432.95

Rectangular O.H.T
289.25
373.14
443.64

Fig 9: Amount of Formwork against Tank Capacity

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Economic Design of Water Tank of Different Shapes With Reference To IS: 3370 2009
Assessing the relative reductions in the amounts of materials for the circular tanks when compared with those of
square and rectangular tanks, it could be deduced that if the relative ease of putting up the shuttering; that is the
formwork, would be significantly more challenged in the construction of the circular tanks, their presumed
material-quantity advantage could be given up for a selection of rectangular tanks (though with potential
increase in material-requirements).

V. Conclusions

As the capacities increase, the amounts of materials for the structure also increases. But, a rather nonperfect proportionality resulted; that is, a proportional increase in the capacity would not, necessarily lead to
a proportional increase in any of the materials required.
The quantities of materials needed for the rectangular water tank were constantly more than those needed
for square tank which is more than the quantity required for the circular water tank, at each varied capacity.
It can be clearly seen from the results that the formwork required for the construction of water tank is
minimum for circular shaped tank as compared to square shaped and rectangular shaped tanks.
Generally, the construction material-outputs for all water tank capacities would be based on the choice of
the design considerations and from the results obtained here points out that the circular shaped tank is the
most economical among other two shapes considered for study as per IS3370 2009 adopting limit state
method of design.

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