Effects of longitudinal excitation on liquid hydrogen sloshing in spacecraft storage tanks under microgravity conditions

Abstract

Based on the real physical model and operating environment of the spacecraft tank, the numerical model of the tank is established and the sloshing behavior of liquid hydrogen in the tank under different longitudinal excitations is studied in this work. The Realizable k- ε model is used to predict the fluid turbulence, and the mixture model is used to analyze the phase transitions and flows. The harmonic external excitation is loaded by the user-defined function (UDF). Based on the CFD sloshing model verified through comparison with experimental results, the influences of different longitudinal external excitation frequencies and amplitudes on the liquid hydrogen volume fraction in the tank are firstly analyzed. On this basis, including pressure and other physical quantities of the monitoring points and whole internal fluid domain during the sloshing simulation process are studied quantitatively. In addition, the relationship between the carrier amplitude of the sloshing curves and the external excitation amplitude is discussed. The simulation results show that in microgravity environment, compared with large amplitude excitation, high-frequency longitudinal harmonic excitation has a significant effect on the variation of physical parameters in the tank, which may become a negative factor for the safety of liquid hydrogen storage and supply systems. Meanwhile, the traditional baffle design has a limited influence on the liquid hydrogen motion under the high-frequency longitudinal excitation which may occur during the spacecraft changing load process. The results provide valuable information for the understanding of sloshing behavior and safety evaluation of the tank under longitudinal excitation.