Control of dynamic interaction between the beam bending and liquid sloshing

The interaction between the beam bending and liquid sloshing occurs in many industrial applications including liquid transport, space exploration, and aircraft wing. Little attention has been directed at the theoretical investigation and experimental validation of coupling effects between the nonlinear bending of the flexible beam and nonlinear sloshing of the fluid liquid. A new dynamic model of a flexible beam supporting a liquid container has been developed. The model captures the dynamic interaction between the nonlinear bending and sloshing. Additionally, an analytical equation was obtained from the model in order to estimate the coupled frequency of the bending-sloshing interaction. The coupled frequency significantly differs from the frequency of the beam bending and fluid sloshing. Furthermore, a new method was presented to control the coupled oscillations caused by the nonlinear bending-sloshing interaction. Experimental investigations were performed on a cantilever beam transporting a liquid container to validate the effectiveness of the dynamic model, frequency estimation, and vibration-control method.