Received: 8 November 2016 Revised: 24 April 2017 Accepted: 7 May 2017

DOI: 10.1002/stc.2049

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Overhead water tank shapes with depth-independent sloshing

frequencies for use as TLDs in buildings
Ritwik Bandyopadhyay1 Soumyabrata Maiti2 Aparna (Dey) Ghosh3 Anindya Chatterjee4

1
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Engineering, Purdue University, West Summary
Lafayette, IN 47907, USA Sloshing water in the overhead water tank of a multi-storeyed building may be uti-
2
Engineering Science and Mechanics, Penn
lized to act as a tuned liquid damper for vibration control under wind and earthquake
State University, University Park, PA 16801,
USA excitation. In conventional rectangular or circular water tanks, tuning presents dif-
3
Department of Civil Engineering, IIEST ficulties as the sloshing frequency varies significantly with change in the depth
Shibpur, Shibpur, India of water in the tank. To address this issue, in this paper, we find shapes of tanks
4
Department of Mechanical Engineering, wherein the sloshing frequency is essentially independent of water depth over a
IIT Kanpur, Kanpur, India
large and useful range of water levels. Both two-dimensional as well as axisymmet-
Correspondence ric (three-dimensional) tank shapes are found. We use a direct boundary element
Ritwik Bandyopadhyay, School of
method to find the sloshing frequencies in each case. In each case, a tentative sim-
Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN ple analytical form for the tank shape is chosen with three free parameters, and these
47907, USA. parameters are adjusted to obtain shapes where the first lateral sloshing frequency
Email: rbritwik22@gmail.com
has negligible variation with water depth. For axisymmetric tanks, the circumferen-
tial (azimuthal) variation in field variables is restricted to the first harmonic, in the
interest of lower computational effort. For both planar and axisymmetric cases, the
working range of water depths is taken to be from 0.2 to 2 times the tank width. In
both cases, the variation in first lateral sloshing mode frequency is found to be under
0.2% over the working range. In comparison, for constant width tanks such as the
rectangular or circular ones, over the same range of water depths, the corresponding
variation is more than 60 times greater.

KEYWORDS
tuned liquid dampers, sloshing frequencies, boundary element method, optimization, depth-independent
frequency

1 INTRODUCTION

Tuned liquid dampers (TLDs), in the form of sloshing tank dampers, have been successfully applied for the vibration control of
tall buildings, towers, and bridges.[17] A significant characteristic of the TLD, especially in comparison with the tuned mass
damper, is that the TLD does not need a threshold level of excitation in order to become active, making it particularly attractive
for the mitigation of low-amplitude building vibrations that cause human discomfort and other serviceability problems. It has
been noted that though for large amplitude oscillations the TLD performance is not very sensitive to the actual tuning ratio
between the primary and secondary systems, for small amplitude oscillations, tuning plays a significant role in the mitigation
of the structural response.[6]
The tank shapes currently used in worldwide applications of the sloshing tank dampers are circular and rectangular. The
shallow damper configurations are generally circular, whereas the deep water tanks are rectangular. The adjustment in tuning
is achieved by the depth of water and the dimensions of the container. Japan has the largest number of tuned sloshing damper

Struct Control Health Monit. 2017;e2049. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/stc Copyright 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1 of 13
https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2049
2 of 13 BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL.

implementations, such as in the Shin Yokohama Prince Hotel, the Gold Tower, the Comcast Center, and the Nagasaki and
Tokyo international airport towers. Other prominent worldwide applications of TLDs include the One Rincon Hill skyscraper
in San Francisco, two residential buildings of 55 and 65 stories in New York City, the Hobart Tower in Australia, and the
Harbourfront Landmark skyscraper in China. The Gold Tower in Kagawa has the tank in the form of a cube, whereas the
Shin Yokohama Prince Hotel utilizes multilayer stacks of circular containers. The Nagasaki and Tokyo International airport
towers are also equipped with multilayer circular vessels. The details of these and some other TLD implementations have been
provided by Soong and Dargush,[5] Jia,[8] and Kareem et al.[9] Tank shapes for TLDs, other than rectangular and circular, have
also been studied. Xin et al.[10] have experimentally investigated the seismic effectiveness of a density-variable tuned liquid
damper with a sloping bottom and have reported that it is more robust as compared to the traditional TLD. Tait and Deng[11]
have compared the performance of TLDs having rectangular, verticalcylindrical, or horizontalcylindrical tank shapes and
concluded that amongst these, the horizontalcylindrical TLD is the most robust and effective. Deng and Tait[12] have studied
TLDs with triangular-bottom, sloped-bottom, and parabolic-bottom tanks, along with flat-bottom tanks, and found that the
effective sloshing mass is greater for parabolic-bottom tank and sloped-bottom tank with sloping angle of 20 .
One of the drawbacks of tuned mass dampers and TLDs is the additional load that is placed on the structure. This is not an
issue in case of conventional building structures provided with overhead water tanks, if the latter are designed to act as tank
sloshing dampers. Some investigations have been devoted to obtaining practical solutions utilizing existing water tanks, whereas
a few have studied new tank damper configurations. For example, Hemalatha and Jaya[13] have presented case studies on the
effectiveness of existing overhead tanks in controlling the seismic response of two buildings and have reported that overhead
tanks that are half full to full are capable of achieving some amount of reduction of the lateral structural response. Ghosh et al.[14]
have proposed a tank-pipe system that is a combination of a sloshing damper and a column damper that may be applied to
multi-storied buildings. Rai et al.[15] have also explored the idea of utilizing existing water tanks as passive dampers for seismic
excitations. A multiple damper system constituted by over 320 small TLD units obtained by partitioning the existing overhead
water tanks atop the building was proposed by them as a seismic retrofitting strategy for an existing four-storeyed residential
building in Mumbai.
A problem that has to be dealt with while designing overhead water tanks atop roofs of buildings as TLDs is that the functional
use of the tank will result in a fluctuating water level in the tank, which will disturb the tuning of the damper. In this study,
we explore the idea of designing the overhead water tank shape (both 2-D and axisymmetric 3-D) of a building such that the
frequency of the fundamental sloshing mode of the water in the tank does not change with the varying water levels in the tank,
induced by usage of the water. This would allow the sloshing mode to remain tuned to the structural frequency at all depths,
putting the passive damper's effectiveness at par with actively or semi-actively tuned dampers.
In what follows, the governing equations for sloshing are presented in Section 2. In Section 3, two different simple direct
boundary element method (BEM)-based formulations are discussed to calculate sloshing frequencies within 2-D and axisym-
metric 3-D tanks. Subsequently, the BEM formulations are validated with available analytical solutions for sloshing frequencies
within uniform tank shapes in Section 4. Then we discuss the method of obtaining optimized tank shapes in Section 5 followed
by numerical illustrations on tank sizing for example buildings in Section 6, and an experimental demonstration in Section 7.
We present concluding remarks in Section 8.

2 EQUATIONS OF MOTION

The governing equations for liquid sloshing within partially filled containers (e.g., oil and water tanks; elevated water towers)
are well documented in texts: see, for example, Ibrahim[16] and references therein. Here, with a view to simple computational
implementation using a direct BEM, we closely follow Srivastava and Chatterjee.[17] As explained there, linear momentum
balance for small oscillations of an incompressible and inviscid liquid leads to the Laplace equation

2 = 0, (1)

where is a scaled fluctuating pressure. In particular, for harmonic oscillation with frequency , we will use

= eit , (2)

where is time independent.

Although the water surface has small motions, boundary conditions are specified on the nominal domain boundary (tank walls
and undisturbed water surface). To make the distinction clear, note in Figure 1 that AOBO A represents the nominal domain
boundary, whereas A OB O A represents the instantaneous domain boundary, and n is the outward unit normal vector on the
BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 3 of 13

FIGURE 1 Schematic of sloshing water within a tank

nominal boundary. The boundary condition on the tank wall is

= 0, (3)
n
whereas on the nominal free surface, we require

= , (4)
n

where = g , and where in turn, g is the acceleration due to gravity.

2

Using Equation 2 in Equations 1, 3, and 4, we obtain

2 = 0 within the domain (5)

= 0 on the nominal tank wall (6)
n

= on the nominal free surface. (7)
n
The above three equations govern small amplitude sloshing in both 2-D and 3-D, in tanks of any shape.
It is pertinent to note that the present work deals only with small amplitude oscillations, as only in such cases does tuning
play a very important role. However, if the water level is low and the excitation is large, both in the conventional TLD and
in the proposed tank, nonlinear wave phenomena would result in high damping, and tuning would lose its significance. Thus,
the evaluation of the accurate natural frequency of the damper at such a low water depth would not be of much consequence.
Moreover, as the TLD proposed in the paper takes the form of the overhead water tank on a building, it is expected that from
fire-fighting and storage requirements, and so forth, a minimum amount of water would always be available in the tank, thus
precluding very low water depths in the tank.

3 B O U N D A R Y E L E M E N T FO R M U L A T I O N

The governing equations (Equations 57) will be solved here using a simple direct BEM to find the sloshing frequencies. The
discretization method in 2-D follows,[17] summarized below for completeness. The axisymmetric 3-D case is worked out below
as well.
The direct BEM is most easily understood by using a physical analogy with electrostatic potential, which satisfies the same
(Laplace) equation. A distribution of charges (as yet undetermined) is assumed on the boundary; conditions are obtained that
these charge strengths must satisfy; the resulting linear algebraic equations are solved, yielding the desired strengths on the
boundary as well as (implicitly) the potential at all interior points. Sometimes, as below, we refer to the charges as sources,
motivated by applications from other fields like fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Details differ for 2-D and 3-D, as given below.

3.1 Discretization in 2-D domain

See Figure 2 for the schematic of a 2-D tank and the corresponding domain boundary. The domain boundary is divided into
several line segments (or elements) as shown in Figure 2(b). At the center of each element, we put a point source of as yet
unknown strength. The potential and flux (normal gradient) at each element's center is expressed as the sum of contributions
from all point sources, on all elements.
4 of 13 BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL.

FIGURE 2 2-D domain: (a) schematic of water tank and (b) discretized domain boundary

The potential at the ith element, due to a point source of strength aj placed at the jth element, is given by[17]

ij = aj ln ||rij || , i j, (8)

where rij is the position vector of the ith element w.r.t. the jth element as shown in Figure 2(b) and where a permittivity related
constant from electrostatics has been taken as unity with no consequence.
When i = j, the logarithm in Equation 8 gives a singularity. This singularity is an artifact of overly simplistic discretization,
and is relieved for the self-induced potential calculation by spreading the source uniformly over the element.[17] The result is
( )
li
ii = ai ln 1 , (9)
2
where li is the length of the ith element.
Next, we consider flux terms. The flux, or normal gradient of potential, at the ith element due to the point source of strength
aj at the jth element, is given by
ij rij n i
= aj , i j, (10)
n |rij |2
| |
where n i is the outward unit normal at the ith element. For i = j, by spreading the source uniformly over the element as above,
we obtain
ii
= ai . (11)
n li
i
If i and n
denote the net potential and the flux respectively at the ith element, we write

N
i = ij (12)
j=1

i ij
N
= , (13)
n j=1
n

where N is the total number of elements. Equations 12 and 13 can be written in the following matrix form:

{} = [A1 ] {a} (14)

{ }

= [A2 ] {a} , (15)
n
{ }
i
where {a} is a vector of the strengths ai , {} is a vector of the potentials i , and n
is a vector of the fluxes n
. The
elements of the [A1 ] and [A2 ] matrices are obtained from Equations 811.
BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 5 of 13

FIGURE 3 Axisymmetric 3-D domain: (a) generating curve, axis of rotational symmetry and ring sources, and (b) discretized domain boundary

Solution of the eigenvalue problem to find sloshing frequencies will be discussed later. We now turn to discretization for the
axisymmetric case.

3.2 Discretization in axisymmetric 3-D domain

A similar BEM formulation as above could in principle be developed for any 3-D tank by discretizing the domain surface. Here,
because we are interested in lateral sloshing modes for axisymmetric tanks only, a more efficient effectively planar formulation
is used as described below.
See Figure 3. The domain boundary is obtained by rotating a plane curve OAO , known as a generating curve, about the axis of
rotational symmetry. In contrast to the point sources of the 2-D formulation, we now consider ring sources of as yet undetermined
strengths distributed over the domain boundary. Our domain of interest then reduces to OAO as shown in Figure 3(b), which
can be discretized using line segments as in the 2-D formulation.
The circumferential (or azimuthal) variation of the unknown strengths is taken a priori to be cos , where is shown in
Figure 3(a). This step restricts attention to lateral modes of sloshing only.
The key step to note is that in 3-D, the potential due to a point charge at a distance d from the charge is not proportional to
ln d but to 1d. The charge density along ring j is taken to be aj cos , with aj as yet undetermined. The resulting potential at
the = 0 position on ring i is found by integration as follows:
2
cos d
ij = aj , (16)
0
(ri 2ri rj cos + h2ij + rj2 )
2

where hij is the vertical position of the ith element w.r.t. the jth element as shown in Figure 3(b). From Equation 16, we obtain
(using Maple),

(ri + rj )2 + h2ij
ri2 + rj2 + h2ij
ij = 2aj E(ij ) + K(ij ) , (17)
r r
i j
ri rj (ri + rj )2 + h2ij

where K() denotes the complete elliptic integral of the first kind, E() denotes the complete elliptic integral of the second kind,
and

2 ri rj
ij = . (18)
(ri + rj )2 + h2ij

Readers may note a minor difference in syntax for evaluation of elliptic integrals in Matlab versus Maple.*

* Matlab's [k, e] = ellipke(chi chi) is equivalent to Maple's k = EllipticK(chi) and e = EllipticE(chi).

6 of 13 BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL.

In Equation 17, the potential has a singularity for i = j. As for the 2-D case, we relieve the singularity by replacing the
concentrated ring with a strip of width li (equal to the element length) and obtain the following for ii (see Appendix A)
[ ]
8 ln 2 2 ln li + 2 ln ri 2
ii = ai + (li2 ln li ) . (19)
ri
The higher order terms are dropped, because they go to 0 quickly with mesh refinement.
ij
Now, we consider the flux (normal gradient) term n
, given by
ij ij ij
= cos i sin i , (20)
n ri hij
where i is the angle between the outward unit normal vector at the element center and the radial direction. The required terms
in Equation 20 are as follows:
( )2 ( )
2 2 2 2 2
ij rj
+ h ij
ri
rj
h ij ( ) rj2 + h2ij ( )
= 2aj { } E ij K ij (21)
ri ri 2 rj (ri rj )2 + h2ij
(ri + rj )2 + h2ij ri 2 rj (ri + rj )2 + h2ij

( )
2 2 2
ij r i
+ h ij
+ rj
hij ( ) hij ( )
= 2aj { } E ij + K ij . (22)
hij ri rj (ri rj )2 + h2ij
(ri + rj )2 + h2ij ri rj (ri + rj )2 + h2ij

Again, the expression for the flux has a singularity if i = j. Relieving the singularity by using a strip as above, we obtain (see
Appendix A)
[ ]
ii 2 cos i (4 ln 2 ln li + ln ri 2) (2 )
= ai + li ln li , (23)
n ri li ri2
where the small term is dropped. As before, potentials and fluxes at different elements can be written in the matrix form of
Equations 14 and 15, with the elements of matrices [A1 ] and [A2 ] obtained from Equations 1723.

3.3 Eigenvalue problem for sloshing frequencies

Boundary conditions have not yet been incorporated. Incorporation of the same will yield sloshing frequencies (recall
Equations 6 and 7).
The Laplace equation has unique solutions for Dirichlet boundary conditions.[18] In our discretized context, this means that
specifying everywhere on the boundary should uniquely determine the as. As a result, we expect the matrix [A1 ] to be
invertible and write
{ }

= [A2 ][A1 ]1 {} = [S] {} . (24)
n
Equation 24 can be further split and written in the following block matrix form
( ) [ ]{ }
n tw S11 S12 tw
(
) = S21 S22 (25)
fs
n
fs

where subscripts tw and fs represent the tank wall and the free surface, respectively. Using the boundary condition on the
tank wall (Equation 6) in Equation 25, we write
1
tw = S11 S12 fs (26)
whence ( )
( )
1
= S22 S21 S11 S12 fs = Afs . (27)
n fs
Comparing Equations 7 and 27, we have
Afs = fs , (28)
which is a routine eigenvalue problem that yields the sloshing frequencies.
BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 7 of 13

TABLE 1 Sloshing frequencies (rad/s) within

uniform tanks
No. Rectangular tank Cylindrical tank
BEM Analytical BEM Analytical
1 3.7605 3.7594 4.1463 4.1443
2 5.5431 5.5411 7.2337 7.2318
3 6.8003 6.7986 9.1534 9.1510
4 7.8531 7.8510 10.7191 10.7162
5 8.7798 8.7777 12.0788 12.0753
Note. BEM = boundary element method.

FIGURE 4 Change in absolute error with element length: (a) within rectangular tank and (b) within cylindrical tank

4 VALIDATION OF BEM FORMULATION

We validate the BEM formulation by comparing numerically obtained sloshing frequencies with available analytical solutions
for rectangular (2-D) and cylindrical (axisymmetric 3-D) tanks. The analytical solution for the nth sloshing frequency within a
rectangular tank is given by[16]

gn nh
2n = tanh , (29)
w w

where w is the width of the tank and h is the water level within the tank. The same for the cylindrical tank is given by[16]

gmn mn h
2mn = tanh , (30)
R R

where R is the tank radius, h is the height of water level within the tank, and mn is the nth root of the first derivative of the
Bessel function of the first kind of order m. As stated in Section 3.2, in our axisymmetric analysis, we have restricted attention
to modes involving cos only, and so, m = 1 in our case.
For demonstration, we choose w = 2 m, R = 1 m, and h = 1 m. The mesh is refined so that element lengths are about 0.5 mm
for both 2-D and axisymmetric 3-D cases. Numerical results along with analytically obtained values for the first five lateral
modes in each case are presented in Table 1. The match is good enough for present purposes.
Results of a separate convergence study are shown in Figure 4 and indicate that error goes to 0 as the 2/3 power of element
size; for planar calculations such as done here, such a convergence rate allows accurate results with a few thousand elements,
which is manageable with simple desktop personal computers.
We now proceed with optimization of tank shapes.

No. corresponds to lateral mode of sloshing. For example, No. 1 represents first lateral sloshing mode.
8 of 13 BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL.

5 OPTIMIZED TANK SHAPES

It is seen from Equations 29 and 30 that the lateral sloshing frequencies for constant tank width increase with the increasing
water depth, but soon approach an asymptotic limit. Frequency variation is small for h > 2w or h > 2R.[16] Accordingly, we
assume tank profiles to be of the following forms
| x |a2
|L|
2-D: = a1 ( | | )a3
z
(31)
L | |
1 | Lx |
| | ( )a
2
r
z L
Axisymmetric 3-D: = a1 ( )a3 , (32)
L 1 r L
where a1 , a2 , and a3 are free parameters, which are to be determined, and 2L is the asymptotic width of the tank. Here, L is a
free parameter that governs overall size, because we seek only a shape.
With no loss of generality in our search for optimal shapes, we took L = 1 m. In Equations 31 and 32, the range of working
depths was taken as Lz = 0.4 to Lz = 4; this in turn determined the limits of x and r. For a given set of values of a1 , a2 , and a3
and several such depths, the domain boundary was discretized, and the first lateral sloshing frequencies were found by solving
the eigenvalue problem given by Equation 28; over the range of depths considered, a maximum and a minimum first mode
sloshing frequency were thus determined, and Matlab's fminsearch was used to adjust the free parameters a1 , a2 , and a3 so
as to minimize
= max min . (33)
The optimized tank profiles thus obtained are
| x |2.0050
|L|
2-D: = 0.7101 ( | | )0.3166
z
(34)
L | |
1 | Lx |
| |
( )1.9019
r
z L
Axisymmetric 3-D: = 0.7960 (
L )0.3465 . (35)
1 Lr
The above may be simplified, with only minor consequences, to
| x |2
|L|
z 5
2-D: = ( | | (36)
L 7 )6
| |
1 | Lx |
19

| |
( ) 19
r 10

z 4 L
Axisymmetric 3-D: = (
L 5 )8 . (37)
r 23
1 L
The variation of the first lateral sloshing frequency with water depth for both optimized and uniform-width tanks is shown in
Figure 5.
Additionally, the percentage variation
( )
max min
Ev = 100%. (38)
2mean
is shown in Table 2. The variation in frequency, compared with the constant-width case, is reduced by two orders of magnitude.

6 TANK SIZING FOR BUILDINGS

We now consider the actual overhead water tank size, that is, the free parameter L needed, for a given building. Our constraints
are that (a) the first lateral sloshing frequency should be tuned to the specified fundamental frequency of transverse vibration
of the building, and (b) the net volume of the proposed tanks should match the required net volume of the overhead water tanks
for the building.
BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 9 of 13

FIGURE 5 Variation of sloshing frequency of first lateral mode with water depth: (a) within 2-D tank and (b) within axisymmetric 3-D tank

TABLE 2 Variation of first lateral sloshing frequency within uniform and optimized
tank shapes
Working depth Case Tank profile max min mean Ev (%)
2-D Rectangular 3.9255 2.9294 3.8325 12.9949
Equation 34 3.9384 3.9318 3.9351 0.0849
0.44 m Equation 36 3.9441 3.9330 3.9365 0.1406
3-D Cylindrical 4.2499 3.3653 4.1800 10.5820
Equation 35 4.2722 4.2651 4.2681 0.0836
Equation 37 4.2799 4.2657 4.2721 0.1657

For buildings whose lateral vibration frequencies are near-equal along orthogonal directions (say x and y), axisymmetric
3-D water tanks would be suitable as TLDs. For a building with different fundamental frequencies of vibration along x and y
directions, 2-D water tanks with two different sizes, aligned appropriately, could be used.
Here, we select two example buildings, denoted as S1 and S2 , with known frequencies. We then determine the optimal tank
sizes and the number of such tanks required to match the desired net capacity.
Example building S1 [19] has a fundamental frequency of 0.4 Hz both along x and y directions. We assume the volume of the
overhead water tank required to be 5 m3 . Example building S2 [15] has fundamental frequencies along x and y directions equal
to 1.135 and 1.195 Hz, respectively. S2 is an existing building and has two rectangular overhead water tanks whose combined
volume is 5.76 m3 .
Before actually calculating L for the tanks, we clarify how L is related to the fundamental frequency within optimized
tanks. For sufficiently large depth of water, the hyperbolic tangent terms in Equations 29 and 30 can be approximatedas 1.
Thus, sloshing frequencies within uniform tanks saturate at higher depths and become proportional to gw (2-D) or gR
(axisymmetric 3-D). Now, we note from Figure 5 that the saturated value of the first lateral frequency is the same as the
fundamental frequency within optimized tanks with L = w2 (2-D) or L = R (axisymmetric 3-D). Therefore, frequencies within
optimized tanks can be written as c gL, where c is a constant and can be computed appropriately for each tank design.
For S1 , the asymptotic radius (same as L) of the optimized tank is obtained as 2.859 m using the saturation frequency value
of 0.4 Hz in Equation 30. Similarly for S2 , the asymptotic widths (same as 2L) of the tanks are determined to be 0.606 m
corresponding to 1.135 Hz and 0.547 m corresponding to 1.195 Hz. Thus, the equations for the tank profiles are
( ) 19
r 10

z 4 2.859
Axisymmetric 3-D corresponding to 0.4 Hz: = (39)
2.859 5 ( r
)8
23
1 2.859

| x |2
| 0.303 |
2-D corresponding to 1.135 Hz:
z
=
5 | | (40)
0.303 7 ( | x |
)6
1 | 0.303 |
19

| |
10 of 13 BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL.

FIGURE 6 Sketches of the optimized tanks: (a) axisymmetric 3-D tank corresponding to 0.4 Hz and (b) 2-D tanks corresponding to 1.135 Hz
(left) and 1.195 Hz (right)

| x |2
| 0.274 |
z 5 | |
2-D corresponding to 1.195 Hz: =
0.274 7 ( )6 . (41)
| x | 19
1 | 0.274 |
| |

If we now choose the height of the axisymmetric 3-D tank to be 2 m, the corresponding maximum radius is 2.093 m (this is the
actual maximum radius as opposed to the asymptotic maximum), and the maximum water volume is found to be 15.213 m3 .
Similarly, if we choose the height of the 2-D tanks to be 0.6 and 0.5 m for frequencies corresponding to 1.135 and 1.195 Hz,
respectively, then the corresponding maximum widths are obtained as 0.587 and 0.525 m, respectively. We assume the lengths
of the tank to be 1.5 m in each case. We then find that 8 units of each type will meet the requirement of 5.76 m3 . The total
number of 16 such tanks is much smaller than the number 320 proposed by Rai et al.[15]
For an intuitive appreciation of the proportions involved, the tank geometries are sketched in Figure 6.
In practical situations, as-built frequencies of structures often vary from those considered at the design stage. In case of
the proposed tank shape, the immediate engineering solution to cater to the tuning to the as-built structural frequency would
be to complete the inner lining of the tank after the construction of the building and subsequent measurement of its as-built
frequencies. The change in width resulting from the difference in the frequencies can be then made up in the finishing of the
tank's inner surface. However, future research on obtaining tank shapes with some adjustable fixtures (e.g., a submersible ball
in the tank bottom) may provide a simpler method to adjust the natural frequency.

7 EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION

Three axisymmetric cups were machined as given in Figure 7. The cups were filled with colored water up to different depths
and kept on a common base. The base was given a small disturbance in the horizontal direction. The resulting motions of the
water surfaces were recorded at the rate of 60 frames per second. The video can be found at https://youtu.be/Y_hwl3MKtLM.

We take the heights as comparable to the widths, because much taller tanks would contain more water without increasing the sloshing mass.
BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 11 of 13

FIGURE 7 Geometrical specifications of a cup whose internal profile matches Equation 35 with L = 25.400 mm. All dimensions in the figure
are in millimeters

It can be seen from the video that the three water surfaces oscillate at the same frequency, which was estimated from the video
to be 4.28 Hz. This was found to be very close to the mean value of the frequencies calculated numerically for several water
depths ranging from 13.5 to 53.5 mm, obtained as 4.26 Hz with Ev = 0.16%.

8 CONCLUSION

Overhead water tanks on multi-storeyed buildings may be designed as TLDs for vibration control, especially to cater for service-
ability conditions under wind and earthquake loading. To prevent detuning between the sloshing frequency and the structural
frequency due to fluctuating water level in typical rectangular and circular tanks, alternative tank shapes have been obtained
wherein the fundamental lateral sloshing frequency of water is nearly constant over a large range of water levels. The derivation
of the tank shapes is based on a new assumed simple functional form and optimization, with a standard Laplace equation based
sloshing calculation in the background. Two shapes have been found: one for tanks that are rectangular in the other direction, and
one for axisymmetric tanks. For each shape, there is a free parameter L that governs the tank size, which can in turn be chosen
based on the needed frequency. Our results may find immediate application in the design of overhead water tanks in buildings.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work represents R. B.'s master's thesis at IIT Kanpur. We thank Atanu Mohanty for his discussions and Anamika Rathore
for her editorial comments.

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How to cite this article: Bandyopadhyay R, Maiti S, Ghosh A, Chatterjee A. Overhead water tank shapes with
depth-independent sloshing frequencies for use as TLDs in buildings, Struct Control Health Monit. 2017;e2049.
https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2049

APPENDIX A: DERIVATION O F S ELF-INDUCED POTENTIAL AND FLUX TERMS

ii
In Section 3.2, we gave expressions for ii and n
. Those expressions are derived here.

A.1 Self-induced potential

A strip of width equal to an element's length (li ) is shown in Figure A1(a). The potential at Pi (Figure A1(b)) is first calculated
due to a portion of the strip with infinitesimally small width and then integrated over the entire element width to find ii below.
From Figure A1(b), the vertical position of Pi w.r.t. B is cos i , where the symbol is used to emphasize smallness, and
in fact = li . Further, r = ri + sin i . The potential at Pi due to the infinitesimal strip can be obtained from Equation 17 by
a d
substituting aj = i l , rj = ri + sin i and hij = cos i . The resulting expression is expanded in a series for small
i
[ { } ]
1 2
ai 4 + 2 ln + ln + ( ln ) d
2
(A1)
ri li 64ri2

FIGURE A1 Exaggerated view of the ith element

BANDYOPADHYAY ET AL. 13 of 13

FIGURE A2 Exaggerated view of the ith element and an accompanying fictitious element

and then integrated w.r.t. from 12 to 1

2
to obtain
[ ]
8 ln 2 2 ln li + 2 ln ri 2 ( )
ii = ai + li2 ln li , (A2)
ri
where the expansion parameter has been replaced with the original physical parameter li .

A.2 Self-induced flux

See Figure A2. We consider a fictitious element at a distance b from the ith element as shown. Both elements have the same
outward unit normal vector n i .
The vertical position of Pi w.r.t. B is ( cos i + b sin i ). Also, ri can be written as (ri b cos i ). Now, the flux at Pi due
a d
to the infinitesimal strip can be obtained by substituting aj = i l , ri = ri , rj = ri + sin i and hij = cos i + b sin i
i
in Equations 2022. The resulting expression is expanded in a series for small
[ { } ]
2b cos i 64ri2 b b2
ai ( ) 2 ln ( ) +2 2 6 + (2 ln ) d. (A3)
ri li b2 + 2 2ri li 2 b 2 + 2 b + 2

The above expression is integrated w.r.t. from 12 to 12 . Finally, in the limit as b 0, we obtain
[ ]
ii 2 cos i (4 ln 2 ln li + ln ri 2) (2 )
= ai + li ln li , (A4)
n ri li ri2
where we have put back = li as before.