Numerical Investigation of the Baffle Effect on the Hydrodynamic Structure of a Container Partially Filled with Liquid

Abdallah Bouabidi^1, , Zied Driss¹ and Mohamed Salah Abid¹

¹Laboratory of Electro-Mechanic Systems (LASEM), National School of Engineers of Sfax (ENIS), University of Sfax B.P. 1173, km 3.5 Soukra, 3038 Sfax, TUNISIA

Cite this paper:
Abdallah Bouabidi, Zied Driss and Mohamed Salah Abid. Numerical Investigation of the Baffle Effect on the Hydrodynamic Structure of a Container Partially Filled with Liquid. American Journal of Mechanical Engineering. 2016; 4(3):112-123. doi: 10.12691/ajme-4-3-5

Abstract

Under sloshing loads, pressure on the walls increases significantly in the partially filled container subjected to external excitations. To reduce the pressure value, the use of baffles was developed as a solution for this problem. In this work, we are interested on the investigation of the baffle effect on the hydrodynamic structure of the container. The numerical simulation was performed using the commercial software “Fluent”. To impose a sinusoidal external excitation, a User Defined Function (UDF) was developed. The VOF model was used to simulate the two phase phenomenon. The hydrodynamic parameters such as, velocity fields, vorticity, static pressure, dynamic pressure and turbulence parameters are presented and discussed. The numerical results confirm that the hydrodynamic parameters are affected specially around the baffle. The validation of our numerical model was assured by comparing the numerical results with the experimental one for the case of the unbaffled container.

Keywords:
sloshing partially filled tank baffle VOF

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