Sloshing-induced slamming in screen-equipped rectangular tanks in shallow-water conditions

Abstract

Sloshing-induced slamming in a rectangular tank with centralized slat-screens with high solidity ratios was experimentally studied under nearly two-dimensional shallow-water conditions with large-amplitude harmonic lateral excitation. The main objective was to identify the solidity ratio that provides an optimal suppressing function on the free-surface elevation and slamming pressure on the vertical tank walls with a frequency domain containing the three lowest natural sloshing frequencies in a clean tank with a water depth-to-tank length ratio of h/l = 0.125 and a high forced sway amplitude. The experiments show that the optimal solidity ratio among four considered slat-screens is approximately 0.6-0.7 for the applied filling level and excitation amplitude in the examined forced frequency range. The results have potential applications in areas such as swash bulkhead design and liquefied-cargo tank design in ship and offshore engineering.