Research on shell-side heat and mass transfer with multi-component in LNG spiral-wound heat exchanger under sloshing conditions

The spiral-wound heat exchanger(SWHE) is the primary low-temperature heat exchanger for large-scale LNG plants due to its high-pressure resistance, compact structure, and high heat exchange efficiency. This paper studied the shell-side heat and mass transfer characteristics of vapor-liquid two-phase mixed refrigerants in an SWHE by combining a multi-component model in FLUENT software with a customized multicomponent mass transfer model. Besides, the mathematical model under the sloshing condition was obtained through mathematical derivation, and the corresponding UDF code was loaded into FLUENT as the momentum source term. The results under the sloshing conditions were compared with the relevant parameters under the steady-state condition. The shell-side heat and mass transfer characteristics of the SWHE were investigated by adjusting the component ratio and other working conditions. It was found that the sloshing conditions enhance the heat transfer performance and sometimes have insignificant effects. The sloshing condition is beneficial to reduce the flow resistance. The comprehensive performance of multi-component refrigerants has been improved and the improvement is more significant under sloshing conditions, considering both the heat transfer and pressure drop.These results will provide theoretical support for the research and design of multi-component heat and mass transfer enhancement of LNG SWHE under ocean sloshing conditions.

Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics Simulation of Ship Motion and Tank Sloshing under the Effect of Regular Waves

Predicting the response of liquefied natural gas(LNG)contained in vessels subjected to external waves is extremely important to ensure the safety of the transportation process.In this study,the coupled behavior due to ship motion and liquid tank sloshing has been simulated by the Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics(SPH)method.Firstly,the sloshing flow in a rectangular tank was simulated and the related loads were analyzed to verify and validate the accuracy of the present SPH solver.Then,a three-dimensional simplified LNG carrier model,including two prismatic liquid tanks and a wave tank,was introduced.Different conditions were examined corresponding to different wave lengths,wave heights,wave heading angles,and tank loading rates.Finally,the effects of liquid tank loading rate on LNG ship motions and sloshing loading were analyzed,thereby showing that the SPH method can effectively provide useful indications for the design of liquid cargo ships.

The Effects of Fluid Sloshing on Different Baffle Configurations in Storage Tanks Transported on Trucks during an Emergency Braking

Different Baffle designs usable in cylindrical and elliptical storage tanks carried by trucks often used for transporting inflammable liquid materials in Cameroon are investigated to evaluate their safest fluid sloshing damping response during emergency braking where the magnitude of sloshing waves are the greatest. The uncontrolled fluid sloshing creates thrust on the walls of the tanks usually felt externally on the truck carrying the tank and capable of hindering driver’s effort to maintain steer ability and improve on safety during critical braking moments. The study first passes through COMSOL, to expose the safest margin of each Baffle type at instantaneous fluid pressure wave propagation initiated at a single phase to reflect sloshing in the storage tank during an emergency braking by the truck carrying the tank. The vivid results can be seen in the domain of Acoustic Iso-surface Pressure response;but also acoustic Pressure and Sound pressure response are seen automatically. Secondly, through an experimental finding in which fluid is forced to pass through each Baffle and the resistance to fluid flow is a measured as it’s the Baffle’s damping ability. Either, the fluid is lost through the Baffle and by determination of the surface load exerted on each Baffle due to the reaction of the residual fluid acting on the surface of each Baffle after some of it is Lost, the individual sloshing damping abilities are exposed. By comparing the Experimental outcome with the computational response obtained, an ideal Baffle design is proposed for cylindrical and elliptical tanks and considered to respond to abrupt braking more effciently. The application of the Baffle designs with an average multiple holes rather than the usual face centered proved to be more effcient in fluid sloshing as they provide a more uniformly distributed damping pressure during fluid sloshing in the tank thereby reducing the magnitude of forward thrust that can be created by the conventional Baffle type during emergency braking hence contributing to improving safety. Mindful of the human, material and environmental damages that an accident involving mobile petroleum storage tanks can course, this study is therefore of great significance for design optimization by petroleum storage tank manufacturing companies in Cameroon.

Nonlinear semi-analytical modeling of liquid sloshing in rectangular container with horizontal baffles

A nonlinear semi-analytical scheme is proposed for investigating the finiteamplitude nonlinear sloshing in a horizontally baffled rectangular liquid container under the seismic excitation.The sub-domain method is developed to analytically derive the modal behaviors of the baffled linear sloshing.The viscosity dissipation effects from the interior liquid and boundary layers are considered.With the introduction of the generalized time-dependent coordinates,the surface wave elevation and velocity potential are represented by a series of linear modal eigenfunctions.The infinite-dimensional modal system of the nonlinear sloshing is formulated based on the Bateman-Luke variational principle,which is further reduced to the finite-dimensional modal system by using the NarimanovMoiseev asymptotic ordering.The base force and overturning moment induced by the nonlinear sloshing are derived as the functions of the generalized time-dependent coordinates.The present results match well with the available analytical,numerical,and experimental results.The paper examines the surface wave elevation,base force,and overturning moment versus the baffle parameters and excitation amplitude in detail.

Review on the Progress and Issues in Liquid Tank Sloshing of Ships

With the development of large liquid cargo ships,liquid tank sloshing has gradually become a hot research topic in the area of shipping and ocean Engineering.Liquid tank sloshing,characterized by strong nonlinearity and randomness,not only affects the stability of the ship but also generates a huge impact force on the wall of the tank.To further investigate liquid tank sloshing,a comprehensive review is given on the research process of the most focused subjects of liquid sloshing.Summarizing the existing research will help to identify issues in the current field and provide useful references.The methods for investigating sloshing,the research progress and the situations worldwide are discussed.The advantages and defects of experiments and numerical simulations are also explored.The problems which need to be explored in the future are subsequently proposed.

ALE FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF NONLINEAR SLOSHING PROBLEMS BASED ON F LUID VELOCITY POTENTIAL

Base d on fluid velocity potential, an ALE finite element formulation for the analysi s of nonlinear sloshing problems has been developed. The ALE kinemat ical description is introduced to move the computational mesh independently of f luid motion, and the container fixed noninertial coordinate system is employed to establish the governing equations so that the mesh is needed to be updated in this coordinate system only. This leads to a very simple mesh moving algorithm which makes it easy to trace the motion of the moving boundaries and the free su rface without producing undesirable distortion of the computational mesh. The fi nite element method and finite difference method are used spacewise and timewise , respectively. A numerical example involving either forced horizontal oscillati on or forced pitching oscillation of the fluid filled container is presented to illustrate the effectiveness and the robustness of the method. In additi on, this work can be extended for the fluid structure interaction problems.

Structural Analogy for Dynamic Analysis of Liquid Sloshing

The analogy between the wave equation of liquid and the Navier equations of structural elasticity is examined in detail. By introducing appropriate parameters, the structural counterpart of the liquid sloshing model can be easily built. Therefore, the dynamic analysis of liquid sloshing can be reduced to that of structural elasticity, and the existing FEM structural analysis computer programs can be applied to liquid sloshing analysis without any modification. The present method also reveals the internal relationship between liquid sloshing and structural vibration. The effectiveness and reliability of the method is illustrated by the numerical example.

Experimental Studies on Sloshing Mitigation Using Dual Perforated Floating Plates in A Rectangular Tank

The performance of dual perforated floating plates in a rectangular tank is investigated based on the model tests under different external excitations for different filling rates.It is found that dual perforated floating plates in the tank can remarkably mitigate violent resonant sloshing responses compared with the clean tank,especially when the external excitation frequency is in the vicinity of the first-order resonant frequency.Next,the parametric studies based on different filling rates and external excitation amplitudes are performed for the first-order resonant frequencies.The presence of dual perforated floating plates seldom shifts the sloshing natural frequencies.Further,dual perforated floating plates change the sloshing modes from the standing-wave mode in the clean tank to the Utube mode,which can arise from the sloshing reduction to some extent.

Numerical simulations of sloshing and suppressing sloshing using the optimization technology method

Sloshing is a common phenomenon in nature and industry, and it is important in many fields, such as marine engineering and aerospace engineering. To reduce the sloshing load on the side walls, the topology optimization and optimal control methods are used to design the shape of the board, which is fixed in the middle of the tank. The results show that the new board shape, which is designed via topology optimization, can significantly reduce the sloshing load on the side wall.

Experimental Study on A Sloshing Mitigation Concept Using Floating Layers of Solid Foam Elements

A sloshing mitigation concept taking advantage of floating layers of solid foam elements is proposed in the present study. Physical experiments are carried out in a liquid tank to investigate the hydrodynamic mechanism of this concept. Effects of the foam-layer thickness, excitation amplitude, and excitation frequency on the sloshing properties are analyzed in detail. It is found that the floating layers of solid foam elements do not evidently affect the fundamental natural sloshing frequency of the liquid tank evidently among the considered cases. At the resonant condition, the maximum wave height and dynamic pressure are greatly reduced as the foam-layer thickness increases. Higher-order pressure components on the tank side gradually vanish with the increase of the foam-layer thickness. Cases with different excitation amplitudes are also analyzed. The phenomenon is observed when the wave breaking in the tank can be suppressed by solid foam elements.

HYBRID APPROACH FOR ESTIMATING COUPLING EFFECT BETWEEN PROPELLANT SLOSHING DYNAMIC AND SPACECRAFT GNC

An approach based on equivalent mechanics theory and computational fluid dynamics （CFD） technology is proposed to estimate dynamical influence of propellant sloshing on the spacecraft. A mechanical model is estab- lished by using CFD technique and packed as a ＂sloshing＂ block used in spacecraft guidance navigation and control （GNC） simulation loop. The block takes motion characteristics of the spacecraft as inputs and outputs of pertur- bative force and torques induced by propellant sloshing, thus it is more convenient for analyzing coupling effect between propellant sloshing dynamic and spacecraft GNC than using CFD packages. An example demonstrates the accuracy and the superiority of the approach. Then, the deducing process is applied to practical cases, and simulation results validate that the proposed approach is efficient for identifying the problems induced by sloshing and evaluating effectiveness of several typical designs of sloshing suppression.

A practical prescreening method for sloshing severity evaluation

This paper aims at finding a proper way to estimate sloshing severity.First,the concept of sloshing severity RAO(SSR) is introduced,and the wave elevation on the liquid free surface is chosen as an initial index for the rough prediction of sloshing severity.Then,compared with experimental data from a 3 D regular model test,this index is adjusted and a new index is generated.One step further,sloshing severity under irregular sea states can be achieved by nonlinear combinations of the new index.For validation,the same model tank is tested under a set of irregular sea conditions,and peak pressures and impulse areas are taken as comparison standards.It is found that both numerical and experimental results show a similar tendency of sloshing severity.As a real ship application on the new index,the sloshing severity of a liquefied natural gas floating production storage and offloading(LNG-FPSO) is predicted under a low filling condition.Besides,the ship motion responses with and without sloshing effects are considered for the calculation of severity.From the present observation,this proposed methodology and generated new index is expected to be applicable to the selection of severe sea states for sloshing loads analysis.

Numerical simulation of viscous liquid sloshing by moving-particle semi-implicit method

A meshless numerical simulation method, the moving-particle semi-implicit method （MPS） is presented in this paper to study the sloshing phenomenon in ocean and naval engineering. As a meshless method, MPS uses particles to replace the mesh in traditional methods, the governing equations are discretized by virtue of the relationship of particles, and the Poisson equation of pressure is solved by incomplete Cholesky conjugate gradient method （ICCG）, the free surface is tracked by the change of numerical density. A numerical experiment of viscous liquid sloshing tank was presented and compared with the result got by the difference method with the VOF, and an additional modification step was added to make the simulation more stable. The results show that the MPS method is suitable for the simulation of viscous liquid sloshing, with the advantage in arranging the particles easily, especially on some complex curved surface.

Investigation of the Effects of Baffles on the Shallow Water Sloshing in A Rectangular Tank Using A 2D Turbulent ISPH Method

Liquid sloshing is a common phenomenon in the liquid tanks transportation. Liquid waves lead to fluctuating forces on the tank wall. Uncontrolled fluctuations lead to large forces and momentums. Baffles can control these fluctuations. A numerical method, which has been widely used to model this phenomenon, is Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics(SPH). The Lagrangian nature of this method makes it suitable for simulating free surface flows. In the present study, an accurate Incompressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics(ISPH) method is developed and improved using the kernel gradient correction tensors, particle shifting algorithms, k–ε turbulence model, and free surface particle detectors. Comparisons with the experimental data approve the ability of the present algorithm for simulating shallow water sloshing. The main aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the vertical baffle on the damping of liquid sloshing. Results show that baffles number has a major role in sloshing fluctuation damping.

Effects of Perforated Baffle on Reducing Sloshing in Rectangular Tank:Experimental and Numerical Study

A liquid sloshing experimental rig driven by a wave-maker is designed and built to study liquid sloshing problems in a rectangular liquid tank with perforated baffle. A series of experiments are conducted in this experimental rig to estimate the free surface fluctuation and pressure distribution by changing external excitation frequency of the shaking table. An in-house CFD code is also used in this study to simulate the liquid sloshing in three-dimensional （3D） rectangular tank with perforated baffle. Good agreements of free surface elevation and pressure between the numerical results and the experimental data are obtained and presented. Spectral analysis of the time history of free surface elevation is conducted by using the fast Fourier transformation.

Optimization of Baffled Rectangular and Prismatic Storage Tank Against the Sloshing Phenomenon

The fluid motion in partially filled tanks with internal baffles has wide engineering applications. The installation of baffles is expected to reduce the effect of sloshing as well as the consequent environmental damages. In the present study, a series of experimental tests are performed to investigate the sloshing phenomenon in a baffled rectangular storage tank. In addition, the sloshing phenomenon is also modeled by using Open Foam. Based on the experimental and numerical studies, optimization of the geometric parameters of the tank is performed based on some criteria such as tank area, entropy generation, and the horizontal force exerted on the tank area due to the sloshing phenomenon.The optimization is also carried out based on the entropy generation minimization analysis. It is noted that the optimum baffle height is in the range of h_b/h_w=0.5-0.75 in the present study(where h_b and h_w are the baffle height and water depth, respectively). Based on the results, the optimal design of the tank is achieved with R_A= 0.9-1.0(where R_A=L/W, L and W are the length and width of the tank, respectively). The results also show that the increase of h_b can lead to a decrease of the maximum pressure and horizontal force exerted on the tank. It is also noted that the horizontal force exerted on the tank firstly continues to increase as the sway motion amplitude increases.However, as the normalized motion amplitude parameter, a/L(The parameter a is the motion amplitude), exceeds0.067, the effect of motion amplitude on the force is not obvious. The same optimization is also performed in the multiple-variable-baffled tank and prismatic storage tank.

Violent Transient Sloshing-Wave Interaction with a Baffle in a Three-Dimensional Numerical Tank

A finite difference model for solving Navier Stokes viscous liquid sloshing-wave interaction with baffles in a tank. equations with turbulence taken into accotmt is used to investigate The volume-of-fluid and virtual boundary force methods are employed to simulate free surface flow interaction with structures. A liquid sloshing experimental apparatus was established to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed model, as well as to study nonlinear sloshing in a prismatic tank with the baffles. Damping effects of sloshing in a rectangular tank with bottom-mounted vertical baffles and vertical baffles touching the free surface are studied numerically and experimentally. Good agreement is obtained between the present numerical results and experimental data. The numerical results match well with the current experimental data for strong nonlinear sloshing with large free surface slopes. The reduction in sloshing-wave elevation and impact pressure induced by the bottom-mounted vertical baffle and the vertical baffle touching the free surface is estimated by varying the external excitation frequency and the location and height of the vertical baffle under horizontal excitation.

Numerical Analysis of the Flow Field in a Sloshing Tank with a Horizontal Perforated Plate

Liquid sloshing is a type of free surface flow inside a partially filled water tank.Sloshing exerts a significant effect on the safety of liquid transport systems;in particular,it may cause large hydrodynamic loads when the frequency of the tank motion is close to the natural frequency of the tank.Perforated plates have recently been used to suppress the violent movement of liquids in a sloshing tank at resonant conditions.In this study,a numerical model based on OpenF OAM(Open Source Field Operation and Manipulation),an open source computed fluid dynamic code,is used to investigate resonant sloshing in a swaying tank with a submerged horizontal perforated plate.The numerical results of the free surface elevations are first verified using experimental data,and then the flow characteristics around the perforated plate and the fluid velocity distribution in the entire tank are examined using numerical examples.The results clearly show differences in sloshing motions under first-order and third-order resonant frequencies.This study provides a better understanding of the energy dissipation mechanism of a horizontal perforated plate in a swaying tank.

Numerical Simulation of Sloshing in Rectangular Storage Tank Using Coupled FEM-BEM

Sloshing of liquid can increase the dynamic pressure on the storage sidewalls and bottom in tanker ships and LNG careers. Different geometric shapes were suggested for storage tank to minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter. In this research, a numerical code was developed to model liquid sloshing in a rectangular partially filled tank. Assuming the fluid to be inviscid, Laplace equation and nonlinear free surface boundary conditions are solved using coupled FEM-BEM. The code performance for sloshing modeling is validated against available data. To minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter, rectangular tanks with specific volumes and different aspect ratios were investigated and the best aspect ratios were suggested. The results showed that the rectangular tank with suggested aspect ratios, not only has a maximum surrounded tank volume to the constant available volume, but also reduces the sloshing pressure efficiently.

A SPH simulation on large-amplitude sloshing for fluids in a two-dimensional tank

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics（SPH） is a mesh-free adaptive Lagrangian particle method with attractive features for dealing with the free surface flow.This paper applies the SPH method to simulate the large-amplitude lateral sloshing both with and without a floating body,and the vertical parametrically-excited sloshing in a two-dimensional tank.The numerical results show that the SPH approach has an obvious advantage over conventional mesh-based methods in handling nonlinear sloshing problems such as violent fluid-solid interaction,and flow separation and wave-breaking on the free fluid surface.The SPH method provides a new alternative and an effective way to solve these special strong nonlinear sloshing problems.