Computational fluid dynamics application: slosh analysis of a fuel tank model

This paper presents the analysis of fluid slosh behaviour inside a fuel tank model. The fuel tank model was a simplified version of a stock fuel tank that has a sloshing noise problem. A commercial CFD software, FLOW-3D, was used to simulate the slosh behaviour. Slosh experiments were performed to verify the computer simulation results. High speed video equipment enhanced with a data acquisition system was used to record the slosh experiments and to obtain the instantaneous sound level of each video frame. Five baffle configurations including the no baffle configuration were considered in the computer simulations and the experiments. The simulation results showed that the best baffle configuration can reduce the mean kinetic energy by 80% from the no baffle configuration in a certain slosh situation. The experimental results showed that 15dB(A) noise reduction can be achieved by the best baffle configuration. The correlation analysis between the mean kinetic energy and the noise level showed that high mean kinetic energy of the fluid does not always correspond to high sloshing noise. High correlation between them only occurs for the slosh situations where the fluid hits the top of the tank and creates noise. (author)