Numerical investigation of sloshing with baffles having different elasticities

Abstract

Liquid tanks are indispensable members of civil engineering structures like liquidpetroleum gas storage tanks and aerospace structures. Fluids can act unpredictablyunder earthquake excitation or dynamic loads. Loads applied to tank changes duringmotion and there can be deformations at the tank or even at the structure where thetank is placed. This is called sloshing and many researchers study the behavior of it.In this research, behavior of baffles having different elastic modulus is investigatedby a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method. The numerical method is a fully coupled FSI method proposed by the authors, recently. The method, which is verified bymany problems, uses smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) for fluid domain, finiteelement method (FEM) for structural domain and contact mechanics for coupling ofthese two domains. In analysis, a tank and a baffle having constant initial geometryare excited by harmonic motions. Elasticity of baffle is changed to investigate the effect on sloshing. Results show that tip displacement of baffle has linear relation withits elasticity for higher rigidities. In contrast, tip displacement of baffle has constanttip displacement for lower rigidities.