Structural and Geotechnical Collapse of an Accumulation and Dispersion Tank

In this work, after a brief introduction relating to the work planned for the construction of an Intermodal Hub and its rainwater disposal system, the failure that recently occurred at the pavements of the dispersion and accumulation tanks is examined. The collapse scenario observed experimentally and confirmed from numerical simulations started with the settlement of the foundation soils. This process was caused by a volumetric collapse of the foundation soil associated with its low permeability and was combined with the structural failure of the plastic lightweight cells due to the biaxial state of stress induced by the lateral soil pressure and the applied vertical dead loads. The lesson learned from this case study is that a combination of factors, such as limited information on the hydromechanical behavior of foundation soils and the unexpected stress state of the structure can lead to the failure of these types of nonconventional structures.