Moving Particle Simulation for Mitigation of Sloshing Impact Loads Using Surface Floaters

Abstract

The violent free-surface motions and the corresponding impact loads are numerically simulated by using the refined Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) method, which was originally proposed by Koshizuka and Oka (1996) for incompressible flows. In the present method, accuracy and efficiency are significantly improved compared to the original MPS method by using optimal source term, optimal gradient and collision models, and improved solid-boundary treatment and search of free-surface particles. The refined MPS method was verified through comparisons against Kishev et al.'s (2006) sloshing experiment. It is also demonstrated that the refined MPS method is excellent in mass conservation regardless of length of simulation time. The developed simulation tool is applied to an interesting idea of using surface floaters to reduce sloshing-induced impact loads. It is seen by a series of simulations that the maximum impact loads can be effectively reduced by using properly chosen floater density. Copyright 2011 Tech Science Press.