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Slosh behavior of water pool under seismic

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Conference Paper · July 2017

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 Indian Conference on Applied Mechanics (INCAM) 2017
MNNIT Allahabad, 5– 7 July 2017

Slosh behavior of water pool under seismic event

Abhishek Upadhyay, Rohit Vadigoppula, Aniket Varshney, Bhushan Warang and Binu Kumar†

* Research Scholar, MGM's College of Engineering and Technology, Mumbai, India.

† Scientific Officer, BARC, Mumbai, India.
Presenting authors email: binu@barc.gov.in
Other Author’s Email: bhushanwarang@yahoo.com

Abstract

Safety of spent fuel storage pool is vital to avoid release of radioactivity in public domain. These
structures must be constructed well to be resistant against earthquakes or any such calamities. In this
paper, effect of sloshing frequency and dynamics of rectangular and circular pool/ tank is studied in
detail. Computational Fluid Dynamics VOF (Volume of Fluid) method has been incorporated to partially
filled tank. Available analytical slosh method for estimation of slosh dynamics is also examined and a
new technique to incorporate to capture 3-D effect has been presented. Various parameters i.e.
hydrodynamic pressure, slosh modes and frequency, impulsive frequency etc. have been evaluated to
understand the effect of slosh dynamics on water pool/ tank and compared with present analytical
methods.

1. Introduction

Sloshing is irregular motion of liquid with splashing. Storage tanks, which are used for storing waste radioactive
water or chemicals, may be of potent threat to the biodiversity of a specific region, if there is any leak or damage
to the storage tank. Modes of external excitation like earthquake or any other natural calamity induces
displacement of tank to produce slosh which can damage the tank; as seen in the earthquakes of 1995 in Kobe,
Japan. Therefore, such cases are studied to understand the sloshing phenomenon and to minimize its effect. In
this study, the primary focus is to study the effect of sloshing in the seismic excitation with the help of
mathematical calculations & CFD Analysis. The obtained values are compared to the values obtained using
Housner’s analytical method and ACI standards. Mitra et al [1] developed a pressure-based finite element
technique to analyze slosh dynamics of a partially filled rigid container with bottom-mounted submerged
structures limited to uni-directional external excitation.
Dogangiin et al [2], in their study, formulated a three-dimensional Lagrangian fluid finite element which includes
the effects of compressibility; and surface sloshing motion is programmed and incorporated into a general
purpose structural analysis program SAPIV. The maximum wave height obtained from this study for the rigid tank
is 10% less than that obtained by Housner’s method for the same tank.
Chen et al [3] developed a method of analysis to simulate the non-linear seismic finite-amplitude liquid sloshing in
two-dimensional containers. Unfortunately, it could not be implemented on containers having submerged bodies.
The present paper describes effect of external excitation on slosh dynamics of water contained in pool/tank. The
results obtained is compared with available codes and standards and described in subsequent chapters.

2. Analytical and Numerical CFD Analysis

For estimation of slosh dynamics effect in a two-dimensional system, the tank is distributed in two parts, one with
air and one with water as required in VOF method. The water tank structure is considered as rigid, hence
structural dynamic behavior of tank wall is not considered in the paper. The external excitation of Design Ground
Response Spectra (DGRS) for Indian Seismic zone IV having 0.24 g Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) is
considered in slosh dynamics analysis. From ACI Code, time period of slosh and impulsive behavior of tank are
shown in equation (1), where D is the inner diameter of circular tank, ρ is density of water and t is the thickness of
tank wall. Ci is the coefficient of time period for impulsive mode, Cc is the coefficient of time period for convective
mode, E is the modulus of elasticity of tank wall and h is the maximum depth of liquid.

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 Indian Conference on Applied Mechanics (INCAM) 2017
MNNIT Allahabad, 5– 7 July 2017
Ci h ρ
Ti = (1)
t * E
D

D
Tc =Cc (2)
g

Equation (3) and equation (4) represent the convective mass heights and sloshing frequency using mechanical
spring models. Whereas equation (5) and equation (6) show the convective height and sloshing frequency for ACI
codal procedures respectively.

h
cosh(1.58 ) − 1
h2 l
= 1− (3)
h h h
1.58 sinh(1.58 )
l l

1.58 g h
ω2 = tanh(1.58 )
l l (4)

  3.67 h  
 cosh   −1
h1   l  
= 1−
h 3.67 h  3.67 h 
sinh   (5)
l  l 

3.67g 3.67ℎ
𝜔𝜔2 = 𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡𝑡ℎ⁡� � (6)
𝑙𝑙 𝑙𝑙
Hence, it can be inferred from equations (3) to (6), these equations are directly proportional to tank parametric
ratio (h/l). Also as these equations are derived from empirical procedures incorporating experimental results,
they slightly vary from each other.

3. Volume of fluid (VOF) method

The Volume of Fluid (VOF) method is a free-surface modelling technique. It belongs to the class of Eulerian
methods which are characterized by a mesh that is either stationary or is moving in a certain prescribed
manner to accommodate the evolving shape of the interface. As such, VOF is an advection scheme—a
numerical recipe that allows the programmer to track the shape and position of the interface, but it is not a
standalone flow solving algorithm. The Navier–Stokes equations describing the motion of the flow have to be
solved separately.

The method is based on the idea of a so-called fraction function C. It is a scalar function, defined as
the integral of a fluid's characteristic function in the control volume, namely the volume of a
computational grid cell. The volume fraction of each fluid is tracked through every cell in the computational
grid, while all fluids share a single set of momentum equations. When a cell is empty with no traced fluid
inside, the value of C is zero; when the cell is full, C=1; and when there is a fluid interface in the
cell, 0<C<1. C is a discontinuous function, its value jumps from 0 to 1 when the argument moves into interior
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 Indian Conference on Applied Mechanics (INCAM) 2017
MNNIT Allahabad, 5– 7 July 2017
of traced phase. The normal direction of the fluid interface is found where the value of C changes most
rapidly. With this method, the free-surface is not defined sharply, instead it is distributed over the height of a
cell. Thus, in order to attain accurate results, local grid refinements have to be done. The refinement criterion
is simple, cells with 0<C<1 have to be refined. This method is also known as the marker and micro-cell
method. The evolution of the mth fluid in a system on nth fluids is governed by the transport equation as given
in equation (7).

∂Cm
+ v × ∇Cm = 0 (7)
∂t
The equation (7) has following limit as described in equation (8).

∑C
m =1
m =1 (8)

i.e., the volume of the fluids is constant. For each cell, properties such as density ρ are calculated by a
volume fraction average of all fluids in the cell as in equation (9).

n
ρ = ∑ ρ m Cm (9)
m =1

These properties are then used to solve a single momentum equation through the domain, and the attained
velocity field is shared among the fluids. Hence, the VOF method introduces only one additional equation and
thus requires minimal storage. The method is also characterized by its capability of dealing with highly non-
linear problems in which the free-surface experiences sharp topological changes. By using the VOF method,
one also evades the use of complicated mesh deformation algorithms used by surface-tracking methods. The
major difficulty associated with the method is the smearing of the free-surface. This problem originates from
excessive diffusion of the transport equation.

4. Input Time History

The velocity-time history in horizontal and vertical direction given to the water tank is shown in Fig 1 and 2
respectively.

Fig. 1: Velocity in X direction vs. Time Fig. 2: Velocity in Z direction vs. Time

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 Indian Conference on Applied Mechanics (INCAM) 2017
MNNIT Allahabad, 5– 7 July 2017
The Figure 3 (a, b) shows the typical mesh of the water element and slosh modes for the rectangular water tank
respectively. Figure 2 shows the multimode slosh behavior of free surface of cylindrical water tank at 4 seconds.

(a) (b)
Figure 3 (a, b). Typical water mesh (rectangular) Figure 4. Slosh mode (cylinder) at 4 sec.
and slosh mode of water

Table 1 shows the comparison of numerical results using VOF method with Housner’s method and ACI code for a
rectangular water tank (Height = 10m; Length = 5m; Width = 5m) having 5 m height of water. It can be inferred
from the table 1 that results obtained from Numerical Method (VOF) are in very close agreement with Housner’s
method and ACI code.

Sr. No. Parameters Housner’s method ACI code Numerical (VoF) Method
1 First Slosh Frequency 0.3957 Hz 0.427 Hz 0.402 Hz
2 Slosh Height 0.62 m 0.70 m 0.63 m
3 Convective Height 3.54 m 3.70 m 3.55 m
4 Impulsive Height 1.406 m 1.875 m 1.4 m

Table 1. Comparison of numerical results with Housner’s method and ACI code

5. Summary

Volume of Fluid (VOF) Technique is an effective method to observe sloshing behavior and obtain accurate
results. It also helps us to find different parameters simultaneously. Another advantage of VOF is that uniformly
and discrete function can be input as velocity or displacement with respect to time as appearing at the time of
earthquake. But in Housner’s method only constant input can be given, this narrows its results and application.
The present method simulated the effect of tri-axial seismic excitation accurately and multi modes can be easily
identified.

6. References

[1] S. Mitra, K.P. Sinhamahapatra, 2007, Slosh Dynamics Of Liquid-Filled Containers With Submerged
Components Using Pressure-Based Finite Element Method, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 304, 361–381.
[2] A. Dogangiin, A. Durmu And Y. Ayvaz , 1996, Static And Dynamic Analysis Of Rectangular Tank By Using the
Lagrangian Fluid Finite Element, Elsevier Science Ltd..
[3] Wei Chen, Medhat A. Haroun & Feng Liu, 1996, Large Amplitude Liquid Sloshing In Seismically Excited
Tanks, Earthquake Engineering And Structural Dynamics, 25, 653-669.

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