Experimental study on characteristics of liquid dynamics in a cylindrical water tank under harmonic excitation

Abstract As the offshore engineering industry continued to develop, issues such as damage to storage structures due to liquid shaking became increasingly prevalent. This paper explored the dynamic response of liquid within a rigid cylindrical water tank subjected to harmonic excitation through vibration table tests, analyses, and numerical simulations. Using the Laplace equation and the Bessel function of the first kind, the analytical formula of liquid dynamic response was derived. A numerical model was established by ANSYS software to verify the accuracy of the analytical solution. At the same time, the response characteristics of hydrodynamic pressure and liquid level wave height were studied by vibration table tests. In this experiment, a rigid cylindrical water tank with varying depths of liquid was subjected to harmonic excitations utilizing a vibration table. In most cases, the experimental results agreed well with the analytical formula. However, under conditions of relatively severe liquid sloshing, there was a discrepancy in peak values between the experiment and the analytical formula. The experimental data indicated that both the hydrodynamic pressure and liquid level wave height increase with an increase in harmonic excitation frequency and amplitude.