Sloshing damping in cylindrical liquid storage tanks with baffles

The potential of baffles in increasing the hydrodynamic damping of sloshing in circular-cylindrical storage tanks is investigated in this study. Based on the widespread use of baffles in moving liquid containers especially in space vehicles, the ability of baffles in reducing the sloshing effects in storage tanks that are especially broader than fuel containers was under question. Concerning horizontal ring and vertical blade baffles, an estimation of hydrodynamic damping ratio of liquid sloshing in baffled tanks undergoing horizontal excitation has been developed analytically using Laplace's differential equation solution. This method involves the assessment of dissipated fraction of total sloshing oscillation energy, which is caused by the flow separation around the baffles. A series of experiments employing a tank model on a shake-table has been carried out to validate the theoretically predicted damping ratio. A parametric study showed that the ring baffles are more effective in reducing the sloshing oscillations. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.