TOTAL VOLUME CONSERVATION IN NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF LIQUID SLOSHING PHENOMENA IN PARTIALLY FILLED CONTAINERS

Abstract

A computational model is developed for incompressible, 2-dimensional, unsteady free surface flows to study the conditions of total volume conservation. Free surface tracking methods used in the numerical simulation of unsteady free surface flows may introduce sources or sinks resulting in changes in total fluid volume in the computational domain. The model is based on finite volume discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations coupling momentum and mass conservation. Free surface position is tracked using VOF method. Possible free surface cell configurations and a solution procedure for continuity are described. Liquid sloshing in a partially filled rectangular containers are simulated. Numerical solutions preserving total volume are presented. Computed free surface profiles are verified by experimental. The Navier-Stokes equations are assumed to hold in the liquid domain and have been solved numerically in developed two-dimensional grids, while the dynamical effects in the ideal gas are disregarded. Also all of the vortexes generated in the flow have been modelled and analyzed numerically. Comparisons of the computed results with exact solutions showed that the method is capable of achieving high accuracy and efficiency with minimal computational effort.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.18.4.2326