Seismic Response of Baffled Liquid Containment Tanks

The failure of liquid storage tanks due to earthquake induced sloshing action of the liquid was extensively observed during many past major earthquakes. The destructive effects of sloshing can however be suppressed in a passive manner by introducing additional sub-structures such as baffles into tanks. The main aim of constructing these sub-structures is to alter the period of sloshing action beneficially and to increase hydrodynamic damping ratio. The main aim of this paper is to numerically quantify the effect of baffles on the response of 2D rigid tanks. In this paper, LS-DYNA program is chosen as a numerical analysis tool due to its high degree of flexibility. The numerical model is first verified using an existing numerical study in the literature and a strong correlation between reference solution and numerical results is obtained in terms of sloshing wave height. Following the verification of the numerical model, the hydrodynamic damping ratio of sloshing in a 2D rigid baffled tank is assessed for different baffle positions. Finally, a parametric study is carried out on 2D rigid tall and broad baffled tanks in order to assess the effect of baffle on the sloshing wave height under different earthquake motions.