Slosh Damping in Rectangular Liquid Tank With Additional Blockage Effects Under Pitch Excitation

Abstract The quantification and damping of slosh responses are significant due to the increasing demand for safety of the liquid-based applications under severe external excitation. Recently, the solid or perforated baffle plates have been used to damp the slosh response of the liquid. However, there is uncertainty in the selection of an effective configuration of the baffle plates. In addition, most of the studies reported the slosh response under surge excitation. Therefore, this study focuses on the slosh response of the rectangular tank fitted with perforated baffle plates of different configurations under pitch excitation. For this, the liquid sloshing is simulated using the concepts of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using pressure-based solver in the time domain. A detailed parametric study is carried out to develop an effective configuration of the perforated baffle plates considering the area of perforations, interperforation distance, size of perforations, distance between the perforated baffle plates, alignment of perforations, and the vertical position of perforated baffle plate as the parameters. The slosh responses are observed in terms of free surface elevation, hydrodynamic pressure, turbulence kinetic energy, velocity streamlines, power spectral density corresponding to the free surface elevation and the free surface deformation. The study developed a “zig-zag blocking alignment” of perforations for effective slosh damping, with the solid area between the perforations being 50%–60% of the area of perforations. In addition, “single-acting range” and “damping range” are identified to pilot the positioning of the multiple baffle plates in a rectangular tank under pitch excitation.