CORRELATION OF COMPUTED AND OBSERVED LARGE-AMPLITUDE LIQUID-SLOSHING UNDER SINUSOIDAL BASE EXCITATION

摘要

A novel method for simulating the seismic nonlinear finite-amplitude liquid-sloshing in two-dimensional containers was developed. In view of the irregular and time-varying liquid surface, the method employed a curvilinear mesh system to transform the nonlinear sloshing problem from the physical domain with an irregular free surface boundary into a computational domain in which rectangular grids can be analyzed by the finite difference method. Nonlinearities associated with both the unknown location of the free surface and the high order differential terms were considered. Sloshing effects and structural response were measured in terms of sloshing amplitude, base shear and overturning moment generated by the hydrodynamic pressures exerted on the container walls. Simulation results were compared with experimental observations to assess the accuracy and limitation of the method. Excellent correlation was found between the computed and observed sloshing amplitudes and the corresponding hydrodynamic pressures.