Experimental investigation of liquid sloshing and mitigation effectiveness of circumferential baffles in storage tanks

Storage tanks are prone to severe liquid sloshing under external excitations, which may lead to tank deformation or even structural damage, thereby posing a potential threat to structural safety. To investigate the mechanisms of sloshing response and to explore effective mitigation measures, shaking table tests were conducted to systematically investigate the fluid dynamic behavior under various excitation frequencies and amplitudes. The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) was employed to analyze the energy distribution characteristics during liquid sloshing. Furthermore, the sloshing suppression performance of circumferential baffles was evaluated by varying their geometric parameters, and a three-dimensional time-domain analysis was performed to evaluate the dynamic stability of the system with circumferential baffles. Experimental results indicate that liquid sloshing exhibits a pronounced resonance amplification at the first natural frequency of the tank, where both dynamic water pressure and liquid sloshing height reach their maximum values. The three-dimensional time–frequency analysis based on the HHT indicates that when the excitation frequency deviates from the natural frequency, energy is dispersed and cannot be effectively concentrated; under resonant conditions, energy becomes highly concentrated and is significantly amplified. The circumferential baffles effectively reduce dynamic water pressure, liquid sloshing height, and sloshing energy. Increasing baffle width significantly enhances the suppression performance, although the improvement becomes progressively less pronounced as the width increases.