Experimental and numerical investigations on the liquid tank sloshing in regular waves

Abstract

With the large-scale development of the liquid carriers to meet the increasing demand of natural resources, the risks resulted from liquid sloshing such as the local structure damage and deteriorating stability subsequently have a sharp increase. In this paper, the dynamic response of the partially-loaded liquid tank in regular waves is investigated both experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, the model of the liquid tank is restrained to two degrees of movement including both heave and pitch. The experiments are carried out in the wave flume with different wave heights and periods, and PIT 3D motion capture system is adopted to track the motion of the liquid tank. For the numerical simulation, VOF method combined the technique of overset meshes is applied to solve the multi-phase flow during the liquid sloshing. By comparison, it can be found that the experimental and numerical results have a good agreement in most cases and the frequency when the phenomenon of liquid sloshing becomes the most violent is less than the natural frequency of the liquid tank.