Experimental Investigation of Liquid Sloshing in Cylindrical Tank with Ring Baffles Under Seismic Excitation

Liquid storage tanks are widely utilized in industrial areas and strategically very important to a country. Liquid sloshing in the tanks have a significant impact on tank design as well as its available volume. Ring baffles can be used to control liquid sloshing within a cylindrical tank. This paper conducted a series of shaking table tests on 21 scaled tank models excited by three real earthquake waves. In the baffled models, relative width and vertical position were the two design parameters. Based on the experimental test results, the sloshing wave height, acceleration and pressure stress of the tank wall have been summarized and analyzed. The effectiveness of the ring baffle in terms of reducing the liquid sloshing was confirmed through the test. When the relative width and relative vertical position respectively came within the range of 0.125 to 0.175 and 0.125 to 0.225, the sloshing wave height was generally well-suppressed, and meanwhile the acceleration of tank wall was effectively controlled. The horizontal ring baffle in the present study is considered as a simple and convenient measure to suppress the liquid sloshing with great application prospect.