Interaction of a Sloshing Liquid With Elastic Containers

Abstract

The coupled oscillations of a liquid partially filled container having an elastic bottom or elastic walls have been studied. Two different tank configurations, a rectangular and a circular container both with flat bottoms are considered. For the cases where the flexibility of the container walls of a rectangular tank are taken into account, the lowest frequency of the system occurs when the tank is completely filled. The frequency increases as the depth of the liquid decreases. The corresponding natural frequencies for a rectangular tank having one flexible wall only are slightly higher. The effect of flexibility of the bottom of a rectangular tank shows a reduction of natural frequencies of the system. The frequency increases as the depth of the liquid increases and gradually approaches to the value corresponding to that of the rigid container. The more flexible the bottom, the lower the frequency will be. For a circular cylindrical container the frequency increases with increasing wall thickness and exhibits lower values for larger liquid heights.