scholarly journals Numerical Simulation of Sloshing in LNG Tanks With a Compressible Two-Phase Model

Author(s):  
Rik Wemmenhove ◽  
Roel Luppes ◽  
Arthur E. P. Veldman ◽  
Tim Bunnik

The study of liquid dynamics in LNG tanks is getting more and more important with the actual trend of LNG tankers sailing with partially filled tanks. The effect of sloshing liquid in the tanks on pressure levels at the tank walls and on the overall ship motion indicates the relevance of an accurate simulation of the fluid behaviour. This paper presents the simulation of sloshing LNG by a compressible two-phase model and the validation of the numerical model on model-scale sloshing experiments. The details of the numerical model, an improved Volume Of Fluid (iVOF) method, are presented in the paper. The program has been developed initially to study the sloshing of liquid fuel in spacecraft. The micro-gravity environment requires a very accurate and robust description of the free surface. Later, the numerical model has been used for calculations for different offshore applications, including green water loading. The model has been extended to take two-phase flow effects into account. These effects are particularly important for sloshing in tanks. The complex mixture of the liquid and gas phase around the free surface imposes a challenge to numerical simulation. The two-phase flow effects (air entrapment and entrainment) are strongly affected by both the filling ratio of the tank and the irregular motion of the tank in typical offshore conditions. The velocity field and pressure distribution around the interface of air and LNG, being continuous across the free surface, requires special attention. By using a newly-developed gravity-consistent discretisation, spurious velocities at the free surface are prevented. The equation of state applied in the compressible cells in the flow domain induces the need to keep track on the pressure distribution in both phases, as the gas density is directly coupled to the gas pressure. The numerical model is validated on a 1:10 model-scale sloshing model experiment. The paper shows the results of this validation for different filling ratios and for different types of motion of the sloshing tank.

Author(s):  
Rik Wemmenhove ◽  
Erwin Loots ◽  
Arthur E. P. Veldman

The numerical simulation of hydrodynamic wave loading on different types of offshore structures is important to predict forces on and water motion around these structures. This paper presents a numerical study of two-phase flow over a sloping bottom with the presence of breaking waves. The details of the numerical model, an improved Volume Of Fluid (iVOF) method, are presented in the paper. The program has been developed initially to study the sloshing of liquid fuel in satellites. This micro-gravity environment requires a very accurate and robust description of the free surface. Later, the numerical model has been used for calculations of green water loading and the analysis of anti-roll and sloshing tanks, including the coupling with ship motions. The model has been extended recently to take two-phase flow effects into account. Two-phase flow effects are particularly important near the free surface, where loads on offshore structures strongly depend on the interaction between different phases like air and water. Entrapment of air pockets and entrainment of bubble clouds have a cushioning effect on breaking wave impacts. The velocity field around the interface of air and water, being continuous across the free surface, requires special attention. By using a newly-developed gravity-consistent discretisation, spurious velocities at the free surface are prevented. Thus far, the second air phase has been treated as incompressible. Taking compressibility effects into account requires a pressure-density relation for grid cells containing air. The expansion and compression of air pockets is considered as an adiabatic process. The numerical model is validated on several test cases. In this paper special attention will be paid to the impact of a breaking wave over a sloping bottom.


2011 ◽  
Vol 189-193 ◽  
pp. 2181-2184
Author(s):  
Heng Zhang ◽  
Xiao Ming Qian ◽  
Zhi Min Lu ◽  
Yuan Bai

The functions of hydroentangled nonwovens are determined by the degree of the fiber entanglement, which depend mainly on parameters of the water jet. According to the spun lacing technology, this paper set up the numerical model based on the simplified water jetting model, establishing the governing equations, and the blended two-phase flow as the multiphase flow model. This paper simulation the water needle after the water jetting from the water needle plate in the different pressure (100bar, 60bar, 45bar, 35bar).


2012 ◽  
Vol 232 ◽  
pp. 279-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
You Hong Tang ◽  
Cheng Bi Zhao ◽  
Cheng Zhang

A numerical model based on the two-phase flow model for incompressible viscous fluid with a complex free surface has been developed in this study. The two-step projection method is employed to solve the Navier–Stokes equations in the numerical solutions, and finite difference method on a staggered grid is used throughout the computation. The two-order accurate volume of fluid (VOF) method is used to track the distorted and broken free surfaces. The two-phase model is first validated by simulating the dam break over a dry bed, in which the numerical results and experimental data agree well. Then 2-D fluid sloshing in a horizontally excited rectangular tank at different excitation frequencies is simulated using this two-phase model. The results of this study show that the two-phase flow model with VOF method is a potential tool for the simulation of nonlinear fluid sloshing. These studies demonstrate the capability of the two-phase model to simulate free surface flow problems with considering air movement effects.


Author(s):  
Rik Wemmenhove ◽  
Erwin Loots ◽  
Roel Luppes ◽  
Arthur E. P. Veldman

With the trend towards offshore LNG production and offloading, sloshing of LNG in partially filled tanks has become an important research subject for the offshore industry. LNG sloshing may induce impact pressures on the containment system and may affect the motions of the LNG carrier. So far, LNG sloshing has been studied mainly using model experiments with an oscillation tank. However, the development of Navier-Stokes solvers with a detailed handling of the free surface allows the numerical simulation of sloshing. It should be investigated, however, how accurate the results of this type of simulations are for this complex flow problem. The paper first presents the details of the numerical model, an improved Volume Of Fluid (iVOF) method. The program has been developed initially to study the sloshing of liquid fuel in satellites. Later, the numerical model has been used for calculations of green water loading and the analysis of anti-roll tanks, including the coupling with ship motions. Recently, the model has been extended to incorporate two-phase flow. This extension improves its ability to simulate the effect of gas bubbles of different sizes. Gas bubbles are present in virtually all relevant offshore situations; not only at LNG sloshing but also during green water events, bow slamming and water entry. In a two-phase flow model, both the liquid and the gas phase can have their own continuity and momentum equations. The handling of the compressibility of the gas phase is a major issue in the design of a two-phase flow model. However, as a first step in the modeling process, the gas phase is considered as incompressible. For a dambreak experiment, results of the one-phase model, the incompressible two-phase model and model experiment results have been compared. It is shown that the physics are more accurately simulated with the incompressible two-phase model. Furthermore, the paper will show results of the incompressible model for LNG sloshing. The physics of LNG sloshing and several other applications can be approached better by taking the compressibility into account. Therefore, as a second step, a compressible model is currently under construction, involving adiabatic compression of the gas phase.


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