Experimental and numerical investigation of sloshing motion in rectangular tank

Sloshing is most commonly described as the movement of a liquid in a partially filled container. Free surface profile changes after sloshing movement of liquid. This change in the liquid surface profile will cause additional dynamic effects on the tank in which the liquid is contained. The sloshing effect will be felt much more when the natural period of the liquid and the period of motion of the object within it approach each other. In this thesis study, an experimental and numerical study of the sloshing movement in a rectangular tank was carried out. There are many studies in the literature in order to understand the sloshing movement. The focus of this study is to understand the behavior of the sloshing movement, which is different from the other studies, by analyzing the experimental video images using image processing software. Experimental results obtained with the image processing system have been confirmed with ultrasonic distance measuring sensors, which is another experimental method. In the thesis study, in understanding the sloshing movement, priority has been given to determining the free surface depth changes of the liquid exposed to sloshing effects. Two measurement points were identified on the test tank and the experimental and numerical results of the water depth changes over time were compared. In this study, a sloshing experiment for a rectangular tank at Madrid Polytechnic University was considered and its experimental results were compared with FLOW-3D computational fluid dynamics software, which is based on the RANS equations and yields very successful results in the solution of free surface flows. When the experimental results are compared with the numerical results, numerical data are generally in good agreement with the experimental data.