The suppression effect of a vertical baffle on three-dimensional swirling and chaotic sloshing in a laterally excited square-based tank

In order to systematically investigate the suppression effect of a vertical baffle on three-dimensional (3D) swirling and chaotic sloshing in a square-based tank subjected to horizontal harmonic excitation, hundreds of experiments are conducted in a clean tank and baffled tanks with three different configurations. Specifically, the vertical baffle is mounted on the tank bottom parallel to the longitudinal direction, the transverse direction, or the diagonal direction. This experimental work finds that there are four sloshing wave regimes in a clean tank—planar, square-like, swirling, and chaotic—which can be described by the asymptotic multimodal theory. Furthermore, there are only two wave regimes in a longitudinal-baffle tank, the planar and swirling regimes, and the occurrence of swirling requires that the excitation amplitude is sufficiently large. It is confirmed that the longitudinal baffle has a significant suppression effect on the swirling and chaotic motions of the sloshing waves, even though it is parallel to the direction of tank movement. Furthermore, the suppression effect of the diagonal baffle is similar to but somewhat smaller than that of the longitudinal baffle. However, when the transverse baffle is mounted on the bottom of the tank, it is difficult to excite the rotation of the sloshing wave. Therefore, the suppression effect of a bottom-mounted baffle depends largely on the included angle between the vertical baffle and the tank movement direction.