The effects of multiple vertical baffles on sloshing phenomenon in rectangular tanks

Abstract

One of the phenomena in storage tanks subjected to earthquake excitations is the sloshing of impounded liquid. The use of baffles for reducing the sloshing effects has been taken into consideration by some researchers in recent years, however, the use of multiple baffles has not been taken into consideration so much. In this study the effect of using multiple vertical baffles in rectangular tanks has been investigated numerically by Finite Element Analyses. After verification of the numerical modeling, tanks with various scales were analyzed subjected to both harmonic and seismic excitations with various intensities to find out the effect of scaling factor. Then, various number of vertical baffles form 1 to 4, were considered at the upper level of the tank and analyses were repeated to realize the effect of baffles on the sloshing. The maximum water level fluctuation was calculated for comparison. Different values were also considered for the submerged depth of baffles to find the more effective depth in decreasing the sloshing effect. Numerical results show that for each series of earthquakes with similar frequency content it is possible to find an optimal number of baffles to minimize the sloshing effect. Also for each number of baffles it is possible to find an optimal submerged depth of baffles for minimizing the sloshing effect.