Numerical Simulation of 2D Sloshing in Liquid Tanks Based on SPH Method

Impact pressures induced by liquid sloshing may damage wall structures of containment system. And when coupling with ship motions liquid sloshing can cause violent motions and even capsizing of liquid cargos under extreme conditions. At the same time, sloshing of liquid tank is a strong nonlinear mechanical problem with free surface, which is very difficult to predict exactly. In this paper, the implementation of the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method is presented to tackle two-dimensional large amplitude liquid sloshing in tanks. The classical SPH method is modified to calculate the pressure on the wall. The wave height tracing module is improved for more accurate output of the computed wave height. Two examples of computations of liquid sloshing in a two-dimensional rectangular liquid tank are performed by above improved method, and mechanism of sloshing phenomenon was analyzed. The results including wave surface profile and pressure acting on the bulkhead are compared with experimental results, showing a good agreement. The capability of this method to be used to simulate large amplitude liquid sloshing is validated.