Dear Er Khati,

In case of concentric circular walls, the inner and outer walls may be designed separately. The outer
wall will not be affected by the presence of the inner one, while the inner wall will have 2 cases:
1. Outer tank empty & inner full, in which case the inner tank will be subjected to hoop tension.
2. Inner tank empty and outer full, in which case the inner tank wall will be subjected to compression.

In case both inner & outer tanks are full, the inner tank wall will not be subjected to any force at all.

Dear Er Khati,
The tank has to be designed as suggested by Er. Abio (I don't know his real name). The outer tank
has to be designed as usual, ie, for max. vertical negative moment at bottom, max. hoop tension at
about 0.6H depth from top and max. shear at bottom. The inner wall, in addition, has to be designed
for hoop compression too, when water pressure acts from outside, ie, when water is filled in the
annular space only. As the safe stress in direct compression of concrete (fcc) is much more than the
permissible tensile strength, the wall designed for hoop tension will obviously cater for hoop
compression also. Bending moment values will be the same for water pressure from inside and
outside. The vertical reinforcement for the same has to be provided on both the faces. The design of a
circular tank with fixed base by using IS 3370 is beautifully illustrated by M.L.Gambhir in his book
"Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures" (PHI) at Example : 10.4.
I have analysed the inner tank of your case with fixed base for water pressure from inside as well as
from outside conditions using STAAD. The file is attached. The BM, SF & Hoop force values change
only in sign when the water pressure direction is reversed. The values are compared against those
obtained by IS 3370 method:

Sl Method of Max BM Max Hoop Tension / Compression (kN/m) [at 0.6H Max Shear
No. Analysis (kNm/m) depth from top] (kN/m)
1 IS 3370 15.67 181 38

2 STAAD 13 184 28

For design, either the mentioned book or any other standard book on RCC design covering water tanks
may be referred.

Dear Er.
Venkateshwar Rao,

Hope you know how to model and analyse the tank. Afterwards, follow the steps given below :

1. Max negative BM : We know it occurs at the bottommost point. Double click on the lowest plate
element. Select "corner stresses". See maximum MY value. This gives the max negative BM.

2. Max hoop tension : Double click the plate elements from bottom to top and find the maximum value
of SX in N/mm2 from "corner stresses". Multiply this with (1000mm x thickness of wall in mm/10 3) to
get the hoop tension in kN/m.

3. Max shear : Double click bottommost plate. Find SQY from "corner stresses".
Multiply this with (1000mm x thickness of wall in mm/103) to get the max SF in kN/m.

Max positive BM may also be found by trial and error, as above.