Characteristics of seismically-induced resonant sloshing waves and the effects of bed topography

• Published in: Ocean engineering Vol. 279; p. 114521
• Main Authors: Jin, Xin, Dai, Chao, Xia, Zhisheng, Liu, Ming-Ming, Luo, Min
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2023
• Subjects: Bed topography; Frequency content; Resonant sloshing; Seismic excitation; Wavelet transform; Bed topography; Resonant sloshing; Frequency content; Wavelet transform; Seismic excitation
• ISSN: 0029-8018; 1873-5258
• DOI: 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.114521

The seismically-induced resonant sloshing wave (SIRSW) is a crucial concern in the design of storage tanks and reservoirs. To uncover the generative mechanism and characteristics of SIRSW and the effects of bed topography, a numerical study using a Navier-Stokes solver with the Virtual-Boundary-Force (VBF) approach for modelling structures is conducted. Various seismic excitations with low to high frequency contents are used to excite nonlinear sloshing. Simplified bed topographies, i.e. the uniformly bottom-mounted rectangular barriers, are considered. Special attention is paid to the correlation between the sloshing response and the seismic characteristics through two groups of parametric studies: 1) changing the peak ground velocity (PGV) under fixed peak ground acceleration (PGA); 2) changing the frequency band under fixed PGV. Results indicate that the seismic PGV, frequency content and frequency band are three significant parameters dominating the sloshing wave; the bed topography can enhance or suppress SIRSW depending on the predominant frequencies of the seismic excitation and their durations. •Generative mechanism of SIRSWs was revealed and topography effects on SIRSWs were examined.•Peak ground velocity, frequency content and seismic frequency band were three major parameters to determine SIRSWs.•Topography effects depended on several predominant frequencies of the seismic records and their durations.