Sloshing analysis of an isothermal fluid in a cylindrical tank for cryogenic tank design using smoothed particle hydrodynamics

This paper investigates the capability of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics to model the free surface sloshing response of an isothermal fluid in a cylindrical geometry. Eleven frequencies for two horizontal driving amplitudes (0.5 mm & 2.0 mm) were validated against experimental results and the influence of the starting direction of the tanks acceleration on the steady state response was investigated. The SPH results reproduced the overall behaviour of the experimental data closely over the range of frequencies tested, but produced higher amplitudes with greater variance in the region of the tanks natural frequency. Furthermore good symmetry was observed between sidewalls for all of the amplitudes tested and no overall dependency of the free surface response on the initial forcing direction could be determined. Finally simulations of three multiple driving frequency cases revealed a significant increase in the amplitude of the response as the phase difference between the acting frequencies decreased.