Reduced order modeling of liquid sloshing in 3D tanks using boundary element method

This paper presents the application of reduced order modeling technique for investigation of liquid sloshing in three-dimensional tanks. The governing equations of sloshing are written using a boundary element formulation for incompressible potential flow. Then, the governing equations are reduced to a more efficient form that is represented only in terms of the velocity potential on the liquid free surface. This particular form is employed for eigen-analysis of fluid motion and the sloshing frequencies and mode shapes are determined. Then, the sloshing frequencies and the corresponding right- and left-eigenvectors are used along the modal analysis technique to find a reduced order model (ROM) for fluid motion. Using a rectangular and a cylindrical tank, the results of the ROM are verified in comparison with the analytical results. Then some example tanks are used to examine the ROM in comparison with the full boundary element model for determination of the free surface motion under the angular and lateral motion of the tank. The obtained results demonstrate the capability and accuracy of the reduced order modeling technique for analysis of sloshing using a few modes.