Computational Modelling of Sloshing in Liquefied Natural Gas Tank

Sloshing in the tank of liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers has recently attracted immense attention due to the rise in demand for LNG transportation. It occurs in partially filled tanks and is capable of inflicting severe damage to the tank’s interior. One effective method to dampen sloshing activities is by introducing baffles into the tank. In this paper, the nature of sloshing has been investigated using finite volume based unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) method. Good correlation was achieved between the results obtained from the presented computations and past studies, demonstrating the feasibility of the established numerical modelling approach. Employing similar computational method, two-dimensional (2D) sloshing computations were performed for different baffle additions at varying filling levels. Observations were made in the baffled tanks where an increase in the number of baffles would cause the sloshing activities to magnify if the baffle height was significantly lower than the filling level. When comparing the 2D and 3D computational results, close resemblance of the average pressure profile and maximum impulsive loads had suggested that 2D simulations are feasible to model sloshing induced loads in a 3D tank.