Liquid sloshing in containers with flexibility

Sloshing is the low frequency oscillations of the free surface of a liquid in a partially filled container. The dynamic response of structures holding the liquid can be significantly influenced by these oscillations, and their interaction with the sloshing liquid could lead to instabilities. It is critical to predict and to control sloshing in order to maintain safe operations in many engineering applications, such as in-ground storage and marine transport of liquid cargo, aerospace vehicles and earthquake-safe structures. Contributions to the state of knowledge in predicting and controlling sloshing are the main objectives of the proposed research. To this end, a numerical model has been developed to enable reliable predictions of liquid sloshing. The numerical results are compared with experimental results to determine the accuracy of the numerical model. Further, the research addresses the employment of intentionally induced sloshing to control structural oscillations. The novelty of this research is in its use of a flexible container. Results indicate that intentionally introduced flexibility of the container is capable of producing effective control. The practical application of the proposed research is in the early design stages of engineering systems for which liquid sloshing plays a significant part in structural loading

A Sloshing Absorber with a Flexible Container

Liquid sloshing may be employed for vibration control of resonant structures, similar to that of a classical tuned vibration absorber. For such a case, the sloshing frequency is tuned at a critical frequency of the structure in order to gain the benefits of the pressure forces as control forces. Such an absorber is practically free of maintenance. The work presented in this paper utilizes a flexible container partially filled with water, as the sloshing absorber. Numerical predictions are presented where a “tuned” flexible container can be advantageous over a rigid container for effective control