Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

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Applied Ocean Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apor

Sloshing in a rectangular tank based on SPH simulation

X.Y. Cao, F.R. Ming, A.M. Zhang∗
College of Shipbuilding and Ocean Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A ship would generate significant sloshing when subjected to underwater explosion loads; the sloshing
Received 22 January 2014 will reduce the ship’s stability and even cause the ship to capsize when coupled with internal liquid
Received in revised form 30 May 2014 sloshing. It is of great significance to research on the characteristics of the sloshing loads in a tank to
Accepted 14 June 2014
improve the ship’s stability and security. The liquid sloshing in a tank is a complex process characterized
Available online 10 July 2014
with nonlinearity and strong randomness, and large amplitude sloshing is a great challenge for both
theoretical models and numerical algorithms. Yet as a meshfree method, Smoothed particle hydrody -
Keywords:
namics (SPH) has great advantages of solving such large deformation problems because of the nature of
Sloshing
Three dimensional SPH
self-adaptiveness and Lagrangian. This paper focuses on the SPH core issues, such as the accuracy and the
Baffle stability of the kernel function and boundary treatments. Firstly, the accuracy and computational stability
Sloshing pressure of four common SPH kernel functions are simply investigated by two simple cases, and a more appropriate
kernel function is selected. Secondly, the dummy particles and a novel boundary treatment considering
the boundary motion are applied. Furthermore, the laws of impact pressure of the two-dimensional tank
under forced rolling with different excitation frequencies and excitation angles are studied. Then, the
influences of a baffle for the liquid sloshing in a two-dimensional tank under forced surging are analyzed,
and the action mechanisms of the baffle are summarized. Finally, the coupled motion of swaying and
surging for a three-dimensional tank is studied, which aims to lay a foundation for further study on the
influence of sloshing loads on real ship motions.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In theoretical researches, for example, the analyses based on

Underwater explosions may cause large-amplitude sloshing
motions and even structural damage to ships. In such cases, the
influent, together with the liquid inside the liquid tanks, would
cause additional damages to ship structures due to the sloshing,
which is a threat to the structural strength and safety of the ship.
It will cause a great threat to the structural strength and ship
safety, especially when the frequency of liquid sloshing approaches
the natural frequency of the ship, which would affect the perfor-
mance of shipboard equipment seriously and even cause the ship
to capsize. Therefore, the studies of the sloshing characteristics
and mechanisms of liquid tanks have great significances for the
ship stability and security. Liquid sloshing in a tank is a complex
nonlinear motion involving free surface, splashing and complex
coupling motion of liquid and the hull. Therefore, many scholars
have focused on this classic problem.
∗ Corresponding author at: College of Shipbuilding Engineering, Harbin Engineer-
ing University, Harbin 150001, China. Tel.: +86 45182518443;
fax: +86 451 82518296.
E-mail addresses: zhangaman@hrbeu.edu.cn, zhangaman2010@gmail.com
(A.M. Zhang).
linear potential flow theory [1–5], relative accurate results can be
obtained only for the sloshing tanks of simple shapes without inter-
nal structures. It is essential to mention that Faltinsen et al. [1–3]
made great contributions to theoretical studies of liquid sloshing.
Through experimental study, one can get a more accurate and reli-
able result. Many works about the model experiments of liquid
sloshing in tanks have been done for different excitations, fillings,
compartments shapes and internal structures [6–9], and also liquid
sloshing effects for ship motions [10]. However, most of the exist-
ing experimental studies are for multi-scale models rather than
real ships. Based on the limitations of the theoretical and experi-
mental researches, a variety of numerical methods are introduced
to solve the problem of liquid sloshing. But most researches con-
centrated on the grid-based approach, for which special algorithms
may be needed when tracking the motion of free surface. Taking the
following studies for example, Liu et al. [11] simulated the liquid
sloshing phenomenon in three-dimensional tanks with the finite
difference method and the VOF method; Nagashima et al. [12] ana-
lyzed the characteristics of sloshing loads in a rotating tank with
the finite element method combined with Level set method; Lee
et al. [13] studied the influences of turbulence, viscosity, density
and compressibility ratio of liquid on the impact pressure with
the finite volume method, and the VOF method was introduced
to track the free surface; Wu et al. [14] studied the influences

0141-1187/$ – see front matter © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2014.06.006
242 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254
of a baffle on the natural frequency of a two-dimensional liquid
tank by the finite difference method and fictitious cell method,
etc. For the problems with free surface of large deformation, the
meshfree method shows great advantages. The SPH method is a
meshfree Lagrangian method, which can directly track free sur-
face and material interface. This enables us to model the complex
fluid dynamics. There are two principal approaches in SPH method
regarding fluid compressibility, namely: incompressible smoothed
particle hydrodynamics and weakly compressible smoothed par-
ticle hydrodynamics. Compared with the incompressible one, the
weakly compressible procedure needs a relatively small time step,
but it is easy to be paralleled and the boundary conditions of free
surface are implicitly satisfied [15], and thus it appears to be more
suitable for the free surface flow problems. The obvious draw-
back of the weakly compressible procedure is unphysical noises
in the pressure field. To overcome the problem, many solutions
have been proposed. Monaghan et al. [16] introduced an artifi-
cial viscosity term to reduce the numerical noise and stabilize the
algorithm. Colagrossi et al. [17] corrected the density calculation
using moving least squares (MLS) method, which is used in this
work and presents some good results. Molteni and Colagrossi [18]
and Antuono et al. [19] added diffusive terms in both the conti-
nuity and energy equations, and the benefits and drawbacks can
be found in [20]. Moreover, many modified SPH methods with
Riemann solver [21–24] were introduced to reduce the numerical
noises and avoid the use of artificial viscosity term, and further
improve the accuracy and conserve the linear momentum, the
total mass, and the total energy. However, the computational
cost of Riemann solver is expensive compared with the weakly
compressible SPH method especially for large particle numbers
[21].
The SPH method has been applied in many fields, such as multi-
phase flows [25], structures of large deformation [26], underwater
explosion [27] and other aspects [28,29]. It has the advantage of
solving the liquid sloshing problems and showing good results. As
for two-dimensional tanks, Delorme et al. [30] analyzed the char-
acteristics of impact pressure with a rectangular tank in rolling
motion, Shao et al. [31] proposed a new coupling boundary method
to simulate the rectangular tanks in the rolling or swaying motion,
Marsh et al. [32] studied liquid sloshing in containers of differ-
ent shapes, Colagrossi et al. [33] and Gotoh et al. [34,35] studied
the violent sloshing phenomenon by using improved SPH method
with MLS integral interpolators and enhanced incompressible SPH
method, respectively; as for three-dimensional tanks, Vorobyev
et al. [36] simulated the centralized sloshing in a fixed cylinder tank
and also the tank with obstacles inside, Rafiee et al. [37] simulated
sloshing in a rectangular tank whose width is far less than the length
under a swaying excitation, Shen et al. [38] investigated sloshing
motion in a barge in irregular waves, Bai et al. [39] studied the slosh-
ing pressure and velocity in liquid natural gas (LNG) tankers and
extended the tank with vertical baffles in rolling motion. Through
these studies, it can be seen that good results can be obtained with
SPH method for two-dimensional and three-dimensional sloshing
tanks, especially in a single degree of freedom. However, studies
are still needed for the influence of inner tank structures on liquid
sloshing and also the coupled motions of multi-degrees of freedom
of the tank.
The paper is organized as follows: firstly, the accuracy and sta-
bility of four commonly used kernel functions in SPH method are
studied, and a new method for calculating the pressure of bound-
ary particles is introduced; secondly, the influences of the rolling
angles and the excitation frequencies on impact pressure are stud-
ied; thirdly, the influences of the baffle on liquid sloshing in tanks
in surging motion are investigated; finally, the coupled motions of
swaying and surging for three-dimensional sloshing tanks are sim-
ulated. Through the comparison between the numerical and the
experimental results, the accuracy and reliability of the numerical
algorithm are verified.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Discretized SPH equations
Due to the finite compressibility of real fluid, the time step
will be very small when the actual equation of state is applied.
Therefore, the fluid is usually regarded as weakly compressible
in the actual calculation, and the pressure field is obtained by
solving the equation P = P(p,e). In general, when the fluid pressure
is less than 1 GPa, the entropy effect on the pressure field can be
neglected [40]. The fluid density is only a function of pressure.
The SPH equations consist of the mass conservation equation, the
energy conservation equation and the momentum conservation
equation. When the pressure of the flow field is small, the fluid is
regarded as barotropic, and the energy has little effect on the pres-
sure field. Therefore, the energy equation is not solved. According
to the kernel approximation and particle approximation in the
SPH method, the density equation and the momentum equation
[41] are expressed as follows:
Dpi
,
(v − v ) · ∇ W V
= −pi j i ij j
Dt
j
Dvi
, Pi Pj , (1)
= g − mj + ∇ W ij + ˛h (ci + cj )(vi − vj ) · r ij
(pi + pj )(r2ij + 0.01h2) )∇ W
ij
Dt pi 2 p2
j
j j
Pi = P(pi)
where P, m, p, c, v, r, g denote pressure, mass, density, speed of
sound, velocity, coordinates and acceleration of gravity, respec-
tively. rij = r−i rj. Besides, W is the kernel function, and the
improved Gaussian kernel function is selected, see in Section 2.2.
The subscripts i and j represent a pair of interacting particles. Coef-
ficient ˛ is set as 0.03 in the following simulations.
From the above equations, one may draw that the density of
particles is determined from the distribution of particles and the
pressure field. The selection of continuity equation is very impor-
tant. The continuity equation used in this paper relates to the
relative velocity of the neighboring particles in the support domain.
Although the continuity equation cannot exactly guarantee the
mass conservation, it can effectively reduce the calculation errors
[42]. When dealing with hydrodynamic problems, usually an arti-
ficial viscous term is introduced into the momentum equation to
ensure the stability of calculation [17], and the Monaghan form [43]
is chosen. When particles approach each other, the performance of
the artificial viscous term is a repelling force and the opposite on
the contrary.
The equation of state is obtained from Tait equation [16] by
adiabatic approximation relations [44]:
y l
pi
Pi = B −1 (2)
p0
where B = p0c20/y and the speed of sound is linked with the fluid
medium through B; y = 7, p0 = 1000 kg/m3; c0 represents the speed
of sound which is set as more than 10 times of the maximum speed
of the flow field.
2.2. Selection of kernel function
Kernel approximation is one of the main sources of errors in the
SPH method. The selection of kernel function not only affects the
computation efficiency of SPH method, but also determines the
accuracy and stability of the method. Especially, when the particle
distribution is irregular, the calculation accuracy of the kernel
function and its derivatives decay seriously, which has significant
 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254 243

Table 1
Kernel functions [17,45,50].

Function name Expression

( 4 − 6r2 +3r3 0 ≤r< 1
3
0 − r)
Cubic spline kernel W (r, h) = ˛d (2 1 ≤ rr < 2
2≤
J 4
Wendland kernel (WC2) (2 − r) (1 + 2r) 0 ≤ r< 2 for 2D and 3D
W (r, h) = ˛d
(0 2 ≤r
5 5 5
(3 − r) −6(2 −r) +15(1 −
r) 0 ≤
r< 1
5 5
Quintic spline kernel W (r, h) = ˛d (3 − r) − 6(2 − r) 1 ≤ r< 2
(3 − r)5 2 ≤ r< 3
2

Improved Gaussian kernel W (r, h) = ˛d (e−(q/h) − C) q ≤ ı

effects on the results. Gaussian kernel function was introduced
into the SPH method earlier, but the cubic spline kernel function
[45] is more commonly used in the literatures; besides, the quintic
spline kernel function [45] and the Wendland kernel functions [50]
became popular in SPH simulations recently [46–48]. The specific
forms of these four commonly used kernel functions are shown in
Table 1.
where, q = 11xi − xj 11and r = q/h; d is the number of dimension.
˛d is a variable coefficient related to the smoothing length and
spatial dimensions. The Gaussian kernel function is given in an
improved form [17]. Compared with the classical Gaussian kernel,
the improved Gaussian kernel is exactly zero at r = ı, and the dif-
ference between the two kernels is less than 0.04% [49]. As for the
improved Gaussian kernel, ı is typically set equal to 3h, so
−1
C = e−9 , ˛ = [hd nd/2 (1 − 10e−9 )]
In this paper the Wendland kernel 31 [50] is used and
renormalized to obtain a compact support of 2h.
The curves of the four kernel functions and their derivatives of
the first two orders are shown in Fig. 1. It is obvious that all the
four kernel functions belong to the bell-shaped function, so they
have similar properties in the support domain. According to the
stress instability condition, it is easy for the kernel functions of this
type to produce a stress instability phenomenon [51]. Regarding
the size of support domain: the radii of the support domain of the
cubic spline kernel and the Wendland kernel are only twice of the
smoothing length. With the same smoothing length, the number
of interacting particles for these two functions is less than that for
the other two kernel functions, which is beneficial to computa-
tional efficiency. Besides, the simulation results will be better if the
functions are sufficiently smooth. As shown in the figure, the quin-
(3) tic spline kernel functions, the improved Gaussian kernel functions

2 3
Cubic Wendland

1.5 First derivative 2 First derivative

Seconnd derivative Seconnd derivative
1 1

0.5 0

0 -1
W/

W/

-0.5 -2

-1 -3

-1.5 -4

-2 -5
-2 -1 0 1 2 -2 -1 0 1 2
r r

(a) Cubic spline kernel (b) Wendland kernel

2

Quintic Improved Gaussian

100 First derivative 1.5 First derivative
Seconnd derivative Seconnd derivative
1
50
0.5

0
W/

0
W/

-0.5
-50
-1

-1.5
-100
-2
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
r r

(c) Quintic spline kernel (d) Improved Gaussian kernel

Fig. 1. The kernel functions and their derivatives.

244 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

0.080
Cubic
Wendland
0.060
Quintic
Improved Gaussian
0.040

0.020

0.000

-0.020
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
d/dx Fig. 4. The initial pressure field.

Fig. 2. Curves of the function approximation errors.

and their derivatives of the first two orders are smooth enough,
but the second order derivatives of the cubic spline kernel and the
Wendland kernel have inflection points. The effect of these four ker-
nel functions on accuracy and computational results will be further
investigated later.
Taking the two-dimensional function for example, the function
and its derivatives are
f (x, y)= x2+y2
fx (x, y) = 2x, fy (x, y) = 2y
The two-dimensional problem domain is assumed to be
x ∈[0, 2] and y ∈[0, 2], the uniform particles spacing dx = 0.1 and
dy = 0.1, and the smoothing length h = 1.23dx. The distance between
the probe and the center of the domain is noted as d. Comparisons of
the particle approximation errors of the above four kernel functions
are shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where
ε =<f (x, y) > −f (x, y)
ε =<f (x, y) > −f (x, y)
Because the derivatives with respect to x and y have the same
results, only the approximation errors of the function’s deriva-
tive with respect to x are presented. As seen from the figures,
the approximation errors of the functions and their derivatives
are almost the same for the improved Gaussian kernel and the
quintic spline kernel. The accuracy of the cubic spline kernel
derivative attenuates more seriously. A large error occurs in the
approximation by using Wendland kernel, which accords with the
conclusion of [50]. It pointed out in [50] that the Wendland kernel
1.000
Cubic
Wendland
0.500 Quintic
Improved Gaussian
0.000
-0.500
-1.000
function may cause large errors with less neighbor particles, and
about 21 particles are used in this simulation. When solving the
hydrodynamics problems, partial differential equations about den-
sity, velocity and other variables need to be solved; therefore the
derivative of a kernel function has great significance. The approxi-
mation errors of the function’s derivative are less than 0.8% for the
improved Gaussian kernel and the quintic spline kernel with uni-
form particle distribution. In the following contents, a flow example
is taken to investigate the computational stability of the four com-
(4) monly used kernel functions.
There is a circle basin of radius R, with the initial velocity field
(
vx0 = −A0x
(6)
vy0 = A0y
and the initial pressure field
P0(x, y) = 0.5pA0[R2 − (x2 + y2)] (7)
(5)
The initial pressure distribution is shown in Fig. 4. The par-
ticles are distributed uniformly at initial time. The motion is in
two-dimensional plane without any external force. Because of the
symmetry, only the upper part of the pressure field is presented.
The pressure distributions for different kernel functions are shown
in Fig. 5. As seen from Fig. 5, the result of cubic kernel function
is unstable and the instability occurs. The result of WC2 shows
big errors, similar to the previous case. As for the initial veloc-
ity amplitude A0 and 2A0, more stable results are obtained from
the improved Gaussian kernel function and the quintic spline ker-
nel function. The results of these two kernel functions are almost
the same when the circle basin reaches the same displacement.
They also show that the Gaussian kernel function and the quintic
spline kernel function are not sensitive to the disorder distribution
of particles.
Comparing the above results, the improved Gaussian kernel and
the quintic spline kernel have better accuracy and more stable
results. The approximation errors of the derivatives are only 0.8%
for the fixed particle case, and the two kernel functions are not
sensitive to the disorder particle distribution. The compact support
domain of the improved Gaussian kernel and the quintic spline ker-
nel is also the same. Besides, it is convenient and efficient to obtain
the derivative of Gaussian kernel function as
∂W xd − xd
i j

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 i = −2 Wij (8)

d/dx ∂xd h2

Fig. 3. Curves of the function’s derivative approximation errors. Therefore the improved Gaussian kernel is selected in this paper.
 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254 245

Fig. 5. Pressure field of different velocities with different kernel functions.

2.3. Boundary treatment

Fig. 6. Boundary particle distribution.

When dealing with hydrodynamics problems, several types of

boundaries always encountered, such as the solid wall boundary interpolated from the given tank velocity. According to the force
and the free surface. Because of the existence of boundaries, the balance between the fluid particle and boundary particle, one can
support domain of particles near boundaries is truncated, which get:
will introduce calculation errors and affect the accuracy of numer- af · rbf = ab · rbf (9)
ical simulations. As for the free surface, most of SPH literatures
state that there is no need for a special treatment. At first, the SPH where, a and r denote the acceleration and position; besides,
method is a Lagrangian method using Lagrangian particle disper- rbf = rb −
rf, the subscripts b and f represent the solid wall boundary
sion, so the kinematic conditions of free surface can be considered particles and fluid particles respectively.
as automatically satisfied. As for the dynamic boundary conditions According to the momentum equation, Eq. (9) can be trans-
of free surface, although the pressure at the free surface is not formed to
strictly zero in the actual calculations, it is guaranteed that the ∇P · rbf = pf (g − ab) · rbf (10)
governing equation converges to order h [49] when the smoothing
length approaches zero. For a pair of interacting particles,∇ P· rbf is equal to the pres-
How to deal with the solid wall boundary in SPH method is a dif- sure increment along the centerline of boundary particle and fluid
ficult and focused issue. Many methods have been put forward. In particle. Thus, the pressure of boundary particle can be drawn from
summary, there are two main sorts of methods. One lays multilayer Pb − Pf = pf (g − ab) · rbf (11)
particles outside the boundary to ensure that the support domain of
fluid particles near the boundary is not attenuated by the wall parti- by the SPH approximation of Eq. (11), the pressure of boundary
cles; the other lays a single layer of particles at the boundary, so that particles is expressed as:
repulsive force is generated to avoid particles penetration when the
,
Pb = (Pf + pf (g − ab) · rbf )Wbf (12)
fluid particles approach the boundary. There are also many com-
f
bined models for boundary particles and fluid particles utilizing
the above two ideas [31,52–57]. But so far, there is no better way Since the boundary particle information can only be obtained
to unify the boundary treatment. In the repulsive boundary model, through the fluid particles, the normalization of Eq. (12) is always
the non-physical disturbance always exists in the flow field. In this carried out to overcome the defects of boundary, and the final
paper, the new formulation for boundary condition by Adami et al. expression of the boundary particle pressure is
),
[54] is selected to calculate the pressure of particles on the solid (Pf + pf (g − ab) · rbf )Wbf
f
wall boundary. At the initial time, the boundary particles are well
arranged once and for all, and the relative position is not changed f bf
during the calculation. It could be drawn from the results by Adami
et al. [54] that, this treatment is not only capable of simulating com-
plex boundary, but also easy to be extended to three-dimensional
problems. Some relatively stable results are obtained through this
boundary method.
The particle distribution of the solid wall boundary is shown in

ary to avoid numerical errors caused from boundary truncation.

Fig. 6. Four layers of particles are laid to model the solid bound- Pb = ),
(13)
ary to avoid numerical errors caused from boundary truncation. W

The physical quantities of fluid particles, such as density and veloc-

ity, are obtained by solving Eq. (1). The support domain of fluid
particles includes the interacting fluid particles and the bound-
ary particles. The pressure of boundary particles is obtained by
interpolation from the adjacent fluid particles but not by solving

After obtaining the pressure of boundary particles through Eq.

(13), the particle density can be got by solving the Eq. (2):
246 1/y X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254
Pb
interpolation from the adjacent fluid particles but not by solving pb = p0 (14)
+1
the continuity equation and the equation of state. The density of B
The pressure formula of boundary particles considers not
boundary particles can be obtained by solving the equation of state only the influence of the interacting fluid particles, but also the
(2). For the test cases in this paper, the liquid tanks are under acceleration of the boundary particles themselves. Also, it can be
forced motion. The velocity of dummy boundary particles is directly applied to the moving solid boundary.
 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254 247

Fig. 7. Pressure distribution of a dam break.

Fig. 7 shows the pressure distribution of a benchmark of dam
break with the boundary used in this paper. As plotted in the figure,
the pressure of boundary particles obtained from the interacting
fluid particles shows a good continuity and no disturbance.
In this paper, the predictor-corrector method is chosen as the
time integration algorithm [58], and the program is paralleled [60].
In order to improve the continuity, the continuity correction of
density field is carried out using the moving least squares (MLS)
method [17] every 20 steps. The MLS correction satisfies the zeroth
order and first order continuity conditions throughout the discrete
domain, and has first-order completeness [59]. Although the MLS
correction makes the calculation slightly expensive, it can improve
the accuracy and stability of the calculation. The flowchart of the
SPH program is shown in Fig. 8, where tmax is the maximum time
of numerical simulation.
3. Results and discussions
The researches of liquid sloshing in tanks are always focused on
the impact pressure on the tank, the influences of internal struc-
tures, the coupling problems of multi-degrees of freedom and so
on. Therefore, the following three models are chosen to validate the
numerical methods in this paper. The distribution of the particles in
the computational models is uniform. In the two-dimensional mod-
els, the particle spacing is dx = 0.005 m and the smoothing length is
−5
h = 1.23dx. A constant time step dt =4 × 10 s is employed. In the
three-dimensional models, the particle spacing is dx = 0.01 m and
the smoothing length is h = dx. A constant time step dt =8× 10−5s is
adopted. The tanks are partially filled with water and the effects of
air and structural deformation are not considered in the simulation.
For a given rectangular tank partially filled with water, its
2 g(nn/L) tanh(nn(D/L), where, Land D
natural frequency is nω=
represents the width of the tank and the depth of the liquid; n is
the modulus. ω1 (n = 1) is the first order natural frequency, namely
the lowest natural frequency. The liquid sloshing violently at the
lowest natural frequency and the maximum impact pressure also
occurs around this frequency.

3.1. Rolling motion of a rectangular tank

In this case, the rolling motion of a rectangular tank is studied,

as shown in Fig. 9. The tank model is the same as Akyildiz’s [6]
experimental model: the rectangular tank has a length of L = 0.92 m,
a height of H = 0.62 m, a liquid depth of D = 0.25 H, and thus the low-
est natural frequency is ω1 = 4.025 rad/s. The external excitation is
0 = 00sin(ωrt), where 00 is the angular displacement and ωr is the
circular frequency of the rolling motion. The rolling axis is located

Fig. 8. Flowchart of the SPH program. Fig. 9. Model of a rolling tank.

Table 2
Calculation cases.

00 (◦ ) ωr (rad/s) 00 (◦ ) ωr (rad/s) 0 0 (◦ ) ωr (rad/s)

Case 1 4 2 Case 4 8 2 Case 7 12 2

Case 2 4 4 Case 5 8 4 Case 8 12 4
Case 3 4 6 Case 6 8 6 Case 9 12 6
248 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

Fig. 10. Pressure distribution with 00 = 8◦ at ωr = 2.0 rad/s.

Fig. 11. Pressure distribution with 00 = 8◦ at ωr = 2.0 rad/s, ωr = 4.0 rad/s, ωr = 6.0 rad/s.

2
2.5
Experiment Experiment
SPH D/dx=15 SPH D/dx=15
D/dx=40
D/dx=40 2
D/dx=60
1.5 D/dx=60

1.5
P/kPa

P/kPa

1
1

0.5
0.5

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 0 5 10 15 20
t/s t/s

(a) 0 4 (b) 0 8

Fig. 12. Comparison of the probe pressure.

 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254 249

6
=4
5 =8
=12
4
P/kPa
3

0
2 3 4 5 6

r
/ rad s-1

Fig. 13. Comparison of the maximum pressure.

Fig. 14. Model of a tank with a baffle.

Fig. 15. Typical velocity for model (3).

250 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

Fig. 16. Typical velocity for models (1), (2) and (4).

at the central axis of the model; the measuring probe is located at
the wall, 0.06 m away from the bottom. The calculation cases are
shown in Table 2.
The case where 00 = 8◦ is taken as an example to analyze the
sloshing wave motion in the tank. The law of sloshing motion in
the first period is shown in Fig. 10, with the rolling amplitude being
00 = 8◦. With the rightward motion of the tank from the middle posi-
tion, the liquid impacts on the tank and the wall pressure increases;
when the angle increases to the maximum, the velocity of the tank
decreases to zero and the tank starts the reverse movement, while
the liquid is still in the rightward motion, which makes the slosh-
ing wave impact on the leftward moving wall and results in the
leftward movement of the wave. The wave firstly arrives at the left
wall and then starts rightward movement after the collision with
the left wall, while the tank continues its leftward rolling until the
maximum amplitude and starts the reverse movement. In the ini-
tial period of the rolling tank, there is a certain phase differences
between the motion of tank and the sloshing wave; however, with
the forced rolling motion of the tank, the motion of sloshing wave
catches up with the motion of the tank gradually. Fig. 11 shows the
pressure distribution at different excitation frequencies. When the
amplitude is 00 = 8◦ and ωr=4 rad/s, the liquid sloshing is the most
violent.
Fig. 12 shows the comparison of the pressure on measuring
probe from the experimental results and the numerical results at
different excitation frequencies (00 = 4◦ and 00 = 8◦) within 20 s. As
seen from the figure, the numerical results of the two models are in
good agreements with the experiment results. Two additional SPH
results are also shown in the figure with D/dx being 15 and 60 while
h/dx kept the same. The convergence of the SPH results is shown in
the figure. The numerical method in this paper shows stable results.
With the increase of the sloshing excitation amplitude, the impact
pressure on the measuring probe increases, and the pulse time of
impact pressure is reduced. Fig. 13 shows the comparison between
 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254 251

0.03
Experiment
SPH result
0.02

0.01
h/m

-0.01

-0.02
0 5 10 15 20 25
t/s

Fig. 17. Comparison of the wave height for model (3). Fig. 19. Comparison of pressure for P1.

filled fluid is D = 0.30 m. A vertical baffle is mounted at the mid-

Fig. 18. Comparison of wave height for P2.
the average peak pressures on the measuring probe at nine differ-
ent calculation cases from10 s to 20 s. As seen from the figure, as the
rolling angle increases, the peak of the impact pressure increases
significantly; the impact pressure does not increase with the slosh-
ing frequency, but increases significantly around the lowest natural
frequency, in which case the pressure on the measuring probe can
be as much as twice of the pressure values at other frequencies.
3.2. Surging motion of a rectangular tank with a baffle
The model of the sloshing tank is shown in Fig. 14. The tank has
a length of L = 0.60 m and a height of H = 0.60 m. The depth of the
dle of the tank bottom, whose height is d. A measuring probe P1 is
located on the wall in the still free surface, and another measur-
ing probe P2 is located at 0.04 m away from the wall. The surging
motion of a rectangular tank is studied in this case with an excita-
tion of y = Asin(ωyt), an amplitude of A = 0.0024 m, and a frequency
of ωy = ω1. The height of the baffle is d/D = 0 for model (1); d/D = 0.30
for model (2), d/D = 0.50 for model (3), and d/D = 0.70 for model (4).
The typical velocity filed for model (3) d/D = 0.50 and the velocity
vector near the baffle are shown in Fig. 15. The vortices evolution
and vortex shedding are also plotted. Because the baffle width is
very small compared with the tank width, it is difficult to capture
the detailed flow phenomenon near the baffle. As seen from the
figure, the SPH method has successfully captured the vortices evo-
lution and vortex shedding near the baffle. When the tank moves
from right to left, it drives the sloshing waves to move from right
to left, which will generate counterclockwise vortex on the left of
the baffle tip, as shown in Fig. 15(a). On the contrary, when the
tank moves from left to right, it will generate clockwise vortex on
right of the baffle tip, as presented in Fig. 15(d). With the motion of
sloshing waves, the vortex will move upward, which can be seen in
Fig. 15(b) and (e), and gradually disappear, as plotted in Fig. 15(c)
and (f).
Fig. 16 shows the typical velocity for model (1), model (2) and
model (3). Comparing the four numerical models, the maximum
velocity of model (1) without baffle is on the free surface, but for
the models with a baffle, the maximum velocity is mainly at the
baffle tip. Because of the baffle, vortex near the baffle tip is gener-
ated, which will cause energy dissipative, and thereby reduce the

Fig. 20. Pressure distribution for model (3).

250 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

Fig. 21. Model of three-dimensional tanks.

kinetic energy of the free surface and effectively reduce the height
of sloshing wave.
Comparisons of the wave height for numerical and experimental
results [9] at 25 s are shown in Fig. 17. The SPH numerical results are
in good agreements with the experimental results. The excitation
frequency is the same as the lowest natural frequency of the tank
and thus the liquid sloshing is violent, but quickly attenuated to
a stable value. The comparison of wave height on P2 and impact
pressure value on P1 between 10 s and 20 s for the four models
are presented in Figs. 18 and 19. As shown in Fig. 18, the baffle
effectively reduces the height of the sloshing wave; the maximum
wave height for model (4) is only 6.5% of that for model (1). With the
increasing of baffle height, the wave height on the probe decreases.
It is the same for the pressure on P1 in Fig. 19, and the maximum
wave height for model (4) is about 15% of that for model (1). From
the two figures, it can be found when d/D ≤ 0.50, the values on the
probes are similar, but when d/D > 0.50, the pressure on P1 and the
wave height on the probe P2 are reduced by more than a half.
The typical pressure distributions are given in Fig. 20, because
swaying excitation is x = Asin(ωxt)sin45◦ and the surging excitation
is y = Asin(ωxt)cos45◦.
Fig. 22 shows the comparison between wave height for model
(1) and experimental results [1] in 18 s. The numerical result is
in good agreements with the experiment trends. In the simula-
tion the external excitation is inserted at the starting time t =0 s.
There are some differences in the amplitude, which is reason-
able since the liquid sloshing in tank is a complex fluid motion
characterized by nonlinearity and strong randomness, and the tank
motion is coupled with swaying and surging. In Fig. 23, the com-
parison of the wave height on the probe for model (1) and model
Experiment
0.04
SPH result
0.02
h/m

of the existence of baffle, the pressure field of fluid is discontinuous

0
near the baffle, and the change of pressure field is not significant.
From the above results it can see that increasing the baffle height
to over a certain percentages of the liquid height is equivalent to
-0.02
reducing the tank width, and the lowest natural frequency of the
tank will be affected. From Section 3.1, one knows that when the
sloshing frequency is far away from the lowest natural frequency -0.04
of the tank, the impact pressure is significantly reduced. Therefore, 0 5 10 15
the baffle effectively reduces the impact of the liquid on the tank. t/s

Fig. 22. Comparison of wave height for model (1).

3.3. Coupling motion of a three-dimensional sloshing tank

A model can be simplified into a two-dimensional model for

Without baffle
0.04
sloshing with a single degree of freedom, but for the coupling With baffle
motion of multi-degrees of freedom, it is essential to establish
three-dimensional models. In this case, the coupling motion of 0.02
swaying and surging of a three-dimensional sloshing tank is stud-
h/m

ied. The tank has a size of×L B × H = 0.59 m × 0.59 m×0.59 m, the
depth of fluid is D = 0.508H. Model (1) is without the baffle but 0
model (2) has a vertical baffle mounted on the middle of the tank
bottom, whose height is d = 0.5D. There are three measuring probes
in the numerical models, as plotted in Fig. 21: the probe P1 is located -0.02
at the middle of the tank bottom and 0.04 m away from the wall;
P2 is located on the wall in the still free surface along the excita-
-0.04
tion direction; P3 is at the center of the wall which is parallel to the 0 5 10 15
baffle and 0.15 m away from the bottom. The model of the three- t/s
dimensional tanks is shown in Fig. 21. The external excitation has
an amplitude of A = 0.0078L, and a frequency of ωx = ωy = 1.1ω1; the Fig. 23. Comparison of wave height for model (1) and model (2).
252 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254

Fig. 24. Height of the free surface of model (1).

Fig. 25. Height of the free surface of model (2).

(2) at 18 s is shown. The vertical baffle in the middle of the tank
bottom is effective to reduce the height of the sloshing wave.
The free surface deformation for the above two models are
shown in Figs. 24 and 25 respectively, where the thicker black line
represents the outline of the liquid tank and the thinner one is the
initial height of the still water. For the model without baffle, due to
the diagonal excitation, the sloshing wave is also along the diagonal
direction. In Fig. 25, the baffle affects not only the height but also
the direction of the sloshing wave. The difference in wave height
for the two models is about 0.03 m, and the magnitude of the liquid

0.8 2
Without baffle Without baffle
With baffle With baffle
0.6 1.8

1.6
P / kPa

P / kPa

0.4

1.4
0.2

1.2
0
1
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
t/s t/s
(a) Pressure on P2 (b) Pressure on P3
Fig. 26. Comparisons of the pressure for model (1) and model (2).
 X.Y. Cao et al. / Applied Ocean Research 47 (2014) 241–254
sloshing reduces about 50% for d/D = 0.5. The direction of the slosh-
ing wave is also changed; the wave has a tendency to transform
from diagonal to planar, which moves from one side of the tank
wall to the opposite side. The three-dimensional sloshing problems
also show good results.
The pressure curves at probes 2 and 3 for the above models are
shown in Fig. 26. It is obvious that the baffle has some attenuation
effects on the impact of inner liquid. However, compared with that
in the motions of a single degree of freedom, the effects of the baf-
fle on the impact pressure reduce greatly in the coupling motions.
Moreover, the pressure at probe 3 becomes more complicated in
the coupling motion. The baffle is more effective for reducing the
sloshing wave height than the impact pressure.
4. Conclusions
Firstly, several core issues of SPH method, the kernel func-
tion and the boundary treatment, are investigated: in term of the
accuracy and stability of the kernel function, the Gaussian kernel
function is proved to be suitable for the present hydrodynamics
problems; in order to solve the truncation of the support domain of
the kernel function near boundary, the dummy particles boundary
is introduced and meanwhile the boundary motion is considered.
Afterwards, the paralleled SPH codes is programed to study the liq-
uid sloshing in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional tanks
of single and multi-degrees of freedom. For the rolling motion of
the tank, with the increase of the excitation amplitude, the impact
pressure on the tank is increased, and the peak of impact pressure
doubles when excitation frequency is close to the lowest natural
frequency of the tank. For the tank with a baffle in surging motion,
the baffle can effectively reduce the height of sloshing wave by
more than 90% in two-dimensional tank under a single excitation;
when the ratio of the baffle height to the still liquid height is less
than 0.5, the variation of the lowest natural frequency is not obvi-
ous; however, when the ratio is more than 0.5, the liquid sloshing
in tank reduces significantly, this is equivalent to reducing the tank
width and will increase the lowest natural frequency of the tank.
For the three-dimensional sloshing tank under a coupled excitation,
the baffle can change the direction of sloshing wave and at the same
time the magnitude of the liquid sloshing is reduced by about 50%.
But the reduction of the sloshing impact pressure is not obvious. All
the numerical results in this paper are in good agreements with the
existing experimental results. To sum up, the reliability and stabil-
ity of the parallel program are verified which lays a foundation for
further studies for the sloshing coupled with ship motions.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Program for Special
Support of Eminent Professionals, the Excellent Young Scientists
Fund (51222904), the Excellent Youth Foundation of Heilongjiang
Province (JC201207), and Lloyd’s Register Foundation, which helps
to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related edu-
cation, public engagement and the application of research.
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