Numerical Simulation of Liquid Sloshing Using a Fully Nonlinear Potential Flow Model in the Noninertial Coordinate System

Abstract

Liquid sloshing has been one of the primary concerns in ocean and o ff - shore engineering due to its significant e ff ects on ship stability and structure integrity. To investigate sloshing flow problems, a 3-dimensional Finite Volume Method based Fully Nonlinear Potential Flow (FNPF) model in the non-inertial coordinate system is developed in the present study. In this model, the Laplace equation is spatially discretised and solved using a second-order accurate finite volume method from the open source computational fluid dynamics software OpenFOAM. For the fully nonlinear free surface problems, both kinematic and dynamic boundary conditions at the free surface are implemented in the mixed-Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) form to update the free surface elevation and velocity potential respectively. The FNPF sloshing model is validated against a number of available experimental measurements and numerical results for test cases under di ff erent external excitations. Finally, the conclusions in terms of model accuracy and applicability are summarised based on the validation and application results. It is found that the proposed FVM based sloshing FNPF model is able to simulate fully nonlinear liquid sloshing process in the non-inertial coordinate system.