Liquid sloshing in a tank vehicle: A numerical and experimental investigation with baffle configurations

Abstract

A three-dimensional numerical model based on VOF (Volume of Fluid) method is established to investigate anti-sloshing effects of various baffle configurations, proposed in this paper, on liquid sloshing in a partially filled tank vehicle. A series of experiments were conducted in a scaled clean-bore or baffled tank. The liquid surface deformations obtained from the numerical model exhibit good agreement with the experimental results at each moment, demonstrating the validity of the numerical model. The validated numerical model was further used to investigate the anti-sloshing effect of different baffle configurations in full-size tank vehicles. The results imply that the addition of baffles can decrease longitudinal force and pitch moment to some extent, in terms of peak value or mean value. Moreover, the addition of baffles may elevate the fundamental sloshing frequency by 50% to 200%, mitigating the risk of resonance phenomena in tank vehicles.