Numerical and experimental analysis of the effect of elastic membrane on liquid sloshing in partially filled tank vehicles

Abstract

A numerical analysis for fluid-membrane interaction is conducted to investigate fluid slosh within a partially filled horizontal cylindrical tank with an elastic membrane restraining the free surface. The fluid-membrane interaction analysis is performed to investigate the effect of membrane on liquid slosh responses in terms of liquid load shifts, slosh forces, moments and slosh frequency. A series of experiments were conducted on a scaled horizontal cylindrical tank with an elastic membrane-like restraint under harmonic acceleration excitations in longitudinal or lateral direction. The validity of the numerical model is demonstrated using the laboratory-measured data. The validated model is subsequently formulated for a full scale tank and analysis are performed under excitations idealizing the straight-line braking or turning maneuvers to investigate the antislosh effectiveness of membrane. It is shown that the addition of membrane can yield substantial reduction in slosh amplitude and thus the pitch and roll moment; the slosh frequency can be substantially shifted to higher values to avoid resonance in partly filled tanks.