Inertia effects in TLD sloshing with perforated screens

• Extensive sloshing experiments are carried out on a rectangular tank with a perforated screen.
• Two types of screens are considered: slatted with vertical slats, and perforated with circular openings.
• Inertia effects increase progressively as the number of openings in the screens are decreased.
• Good agreement is obtained between experimental and numerical hydrodynamic coefficients.

Rectangular tanks equipped with perforated screens and partly filled with water have been proposed as Tuned Liquid Dampers (TLDs) to mitigate the vibratory response of slender buildings. In a previous paper (Molin & Remy 2013)an experimental campaign was reported and its results compared with a numerical model, based on linearized potential flow theory. Good agreement was generally obtained for the added mass and damping coefficients. In these experiments the screen had numerous circular openings, 4 mm in diameter, and it was assumed in the numerical model that the screen created a pressure drop proportional to the square of the relative traversing velocity. In this subsequent paper complementary experiments are described where the screen openings are increased in size, keeping constant the open-area ratio, and varied in shapes (vertical slots then circular holes). As a result of the solid parts of the screen getting larger, inertia effects come into play resulting in a shift of the resonant frequencies of the odd sloshing modes. With a proper modification of the discharge law in the numerical model, ccounting for inertia effects, good agreement is recovered between experimental and numerical hydrodynamic coefficients.