• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.2039-2046
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• 2003

Storage tank filled with fluid has unique dynamic characteristics compared to general structures, due to the interaction between fluid and structure. The oscillation of the fluid surface caused by external forces is called sloshing, which occurs in moving vehicles with contained liquid masses, such as trucks, railroad cars, aircrafts, and liquid missles. In this study, the evaluation method for the reduction of sloshing, the optimized size and location of wing and diaphragm baffles are suggested based on the experimental results. The experimental device can simulate the translation motion. A rectangular tank and various baffles are fabricated to study on the sloshing characteristics. The forces measured using the load cell at tank wall and those are compared with each other through the Fourier transformation for various conditions. The study of the sloshing of the rectangular tank equipped with baffles is conducted under the same conditions with non-baffled rectangular tank experiment. From the experimental results, the sloshing reduction effect by the baffles is observed. In conclusion in case of diaphragm baffles, the optimized size ratio of the width of baffle to the water height is 0.44 and the installation location has no effect to the damping of sloshing. In case of wing baffles, the optimized size ratio of the width of baffle to the length of a rectangular tank is 0.1 and the optimized location ratio of the baffle to the water height is 0.9.