Simulation of Fluid Sloshing in a Tank

Sloshing has widespread applications in many industries including automotive, aerospace, ship building and motorcycle manufacturing. The goal of sloshing simulation is to first study the sloshing pattern and then improve the tank design to reduce noise levels, stresses on the structure and optimize the baffle arrangements. In this project simulation of the fluid in tank is studied and the design modification with baffle plate is considered to minimize the sloshing phenomena using ALE method. Also it is explained that there is need to analyze the sloshing phenomena in detail. Arbitrary Langrangian Eulerian finite element methods gain interest for the capability to control mesh geometry independently from material geometry, the ALE methods are used to create a new undistorted mesh for the fluid domain. In this paper we use the ALE technique to solve fuel slosh problem. Fuel slosh is an important design consideration not only for the fuel tank, but also for the structure supporting the fuel tank. Fuel slosh can be generated by many ways: abrupt changes in acceleration (braking), as well as abrupt changes in direction (highway exit-ramp). Repetitive motion can also be involved if a sloshing resonance is generated. These sloshing events can in turn affect the overall performance of the parent structure. A finite element analysis method has been developed to analyze this complex event. A new ALE formulation for the fluid mesh can be used to keep the fluid mesh integrity during the motion of the tank. This paper explains the analysis capabilities on a technical level.