An efficient methodology for simulating roll dynamics of a tank vehicle coupled with transient fluid slosh

Abstract

An efficient methodology is proposed for simulation of roll dynamics of a tank vehicle system coupled with transient hydrodynamic forces due to fluid slosh. The transient fluid slosh in a horizontal cylindrical tank is analytically modeled considering simultaneous lateral, vertical and roll excitations assuming potential flows and a linearized free-surface boundary condition. For this purpose, the fluid domain in the Cartesian coordinate system is transformed to the bipolar coordinates, where the Laplace equation could be solved using separation of variables. The resulting hydrodynamic pressure, free-surface elevation and slosh force and roll moment are formulated in the tank-fixed coordinate system. The transient fluid slosh model is subsequently integrated to a dynamic roll plane model of a tank vehicle combination to investigate the effect of transient liquid slosh on the roll stability of the vehicle during steady-turning as well as path-change maneuvers. The analyses are performed for different fluid fill heights considering both variable and constant cargo load conditions. The results suggest that the roll stability of tank vehicles can be efficiently analyzed using the coupled linear slosh and multi-body vehicle models with significantly lower computational effort than the methods employing computational fluid dynamic fluid slosh models.