SUMMARY
A partitioned, continuum‐based, internal fluid–structure interaction (FSI) formulation is developed for modeling combined sloshing, acoustic waves, and the presence of an initial pressurized state. The present formulation and its computer implementation use the method of localized Lagrange multipliers to treat both matching and non‐matching interfaces. It is shown that, with the context of continuum Lagrangian kinematics, the fluid sloshing and acoustic stiffness terms originate from an initial pressure term akin to that responsible for geometric stiffness effects in solid mechanics. The present formulation is applicable to both linearized vibration analysis and nonlinear FSI transient analysis provided that a convected kinematics is adopted for updating the mesh geometry in a finite element discretization. Numerical examples illustrate the capability of the present procedure for solving coupled vibration and nonlinear sloshing problems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.