Experimental investigation of slosh dynamics of liquid-filled containers

This paper is concerned with the experimental studies on the sloshing respo nse of liquid-filled containers. A three-dimensional finite element analysi s is carried out for the numerical simulation of this problem. The effects of sloshing are computed in the time domain using Newmark's time integratio n scheme. A simple experimental setup is designed and fabricated in-house t o conduct experiments for measuring some of the basic parameters of sloshin g. A sensor device is especially developed to record the free-surface wave heights. Each wave height sensor is a capacitance probe that detects the ch ange in level of liquid (water) precisely with no time lag. The sensors are used in conjunction with a signal-processing unit in which the capacitance values are transduced to a voltage signal between 0 V and 16 V. These wave height sensors simultaneously record the slosh wave height near the periph ery of the container wall from 16 predetermined locations to give the free- surface profiles of liquid at desired time steps. The experimental results are compared with those obtained from the present theoretical analysis, and good agreements are observed.