Experimental and theoretical investigation on the sloshing of a two-liquid system with free surface

In this paper a theoretical and experimental investigation is performed on the sloshing of a two-liquid system with both separation and free surface. The experimental configuration consists of an oscillating tank filled with two layers of immiscible liquids. The mathematical model is obtained by applying the Lagrangian variational approach to the potential formulation of the fluid motion, and a dynamical system which describes the dynamics of motion is derived. In order to account for the damping of the motion, generalized dissipative forces are considered. For this purpose, the logarithmic decrement coefficients are estimated by means of a wavelet analysis performed on the experimental free oscillations of the fluid system. Numerical integration of the mathematical model gives results which are in a fair agreement with the experimental results.