EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF MODAL PROPERTIES FOR AUTOMOTIVE FUEL TANK

A fuel tank is the one of the important parts in automotive fuel system that stores liquid fuel and provides space for integrating fuel pump, filter, regulator and gauge inside the tank. The dynamic characteristics of fuel tank are affected by the mass of liquid and other fluid - structure interactions. Therefore, knowledge of the effects of different parameters on modal properties is very important to design the fuel tank and integrate fuel system components inside the fuel tank. This work addresses the vibration characteristics of an automotive fuel tank under empty and fluid-structure coupling conditions. The finite element model for vibration analysis of the fuel tank is developed using ANSYS software and the modal parameters, namely the natural frequencies and mode shapes are predicted. Experimental setup is developed using accelerometer interfaced with data acquisition card. The frequency responses of the fuel tank are analyzed using LabVIEW software. The experiments are carried out for different fill levels of the tank. The findings show that the level of liquid influences greatly the dynamic characteristics of the tank. The results obtained from the numerical simulations are compared with experimental data and good agreements are observed.