Abstract

The liquid motion within a partially filled moving container has been associated with reduced overturning limits and braking efficiency of highway tank trucks. While the studies using quasi-static models have evaluated the contribution of cargo displacement in degrading the stability characteristics of tank trucks, the role of transient load surges on the directional stability and safety measures has been ignored. It has been suggested that the transient fluid slosh and fluid-structure interactions may further reduce the stability limits of the vehicle. This dissertation work focuses on various dynamic response measures of the dynamic liquid slosh in a partially filled circular-cross section tank exposed to the lateral, longitudinal, a combination of lateral and longitudinal acceleration excitations. The analysis of a partially filled clean bore circular tank is performed under different magnitudes of steady as well as harmonic lateral acceleration fields using the FLUENT software. The measures include the dynamic variations in forces, moments, centre of mass coordinates and mass moments of inertia of the cargo, which could be applied to assess the direction performance of vehicles subject to transient fluid slosh. The results are compared with those derived from the quasi-static liquid slosh model and the significance of the dynamic slosh behaviors is discussed as functions of the fill level, magnitude of acceleration, physical properties of the liquid cargo. A relationship between the lateral force and the resulting roll moment is derived, which suggests that the roll moment could be defined as a function of the horizontal force and tank radius. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)