Research on density measurement of liquefied natural gas storage tank based on computational fluid dynamics

Based on the data provided by Sinopec Tianjin LNG Co., Ltd., a similation model for liquid flow in LNG tanks was established. A 1:1 three-dimensional geometric model was built through Geometry component. Adaptive grids were constucted using Mesh component. The number of grids for liquid outlet and inlet was increased. Model conditions, physical parameters, boundary conditions, and solution conditions were set through Fluent, and calculations were carried out. The results were post-processed through the Results component, and were analyzed to verify the effectiveness of the model. Focusing on the density measurement, a series of experiments were designed by dividing different working conditions, such as standing, single inlet, single outlet, and compound situations. According to the experimental results, we found that a six-order function can be used to fit the density distribution under different working conditions. The results showed that the employed density measurement technique by Sinopec Tianjin LNG Co., Ltd. meets industrial requirements.