Nonlinear liquid sloshing in an upright circular container: Modal responses and higher-order harmonics

Nonlinear sloshing in an upright circular container near the lowest natural frequency is analyzed by using a fully nonlinear overset-mesh-based harmonic polynomial cell method, two weakly nonlinear Narimanov–Moiseev-type multimodal models and a linear multimodal method. Modal responses are extracted from the fully nonlinear results based on a simple but accurate least-square procedure using the time series of free-surface wave elevations, which provides new ways to delve into the underlying modal responses and energy transfer between modes, as well as to verify the validity of ordering assumptions in the weakly nonlinear models. Wavelet analyses are also performed for the wave elevations and generalized coordinates of the modes to better understand the time-frequency information of the higher harmonics of the sloshing responses and energy transfer in a nonlinear process. Planar harmonic sloshing state, swirling harmonic sloshing state, and periodically modulated sloshing state are analyzed. It is found that the energy is more dispersed among different modes in the periodically modulated sloshing state, which means higher natural modes are consequential. In general, energies are found to transfer from lower to higher natural modes and between symmetric and antisymmetric natural modes. The results also show that the O(ε1/3) and O(ε2/3) responses are dominated by only first and second harmonics, respectively, while the O(ε) response contains non-negligible first and third harmonic contribution. At last, the influence of initial disturbance is examined, demonstrating that different initial disturbances may lead to the different rotation direction of the swirling waves and the sloshing-wave responses in the transient stage, while the main characteristics of the sloshing waves are robust and independent of initial conditions.