Simulation of anti-roll tanks and sloshing type problems with smoothed particle hydrodynamics

We describe the work performed in the numerical simulation of passive roll-damper tanks for fishing vessels. The fluid in the tank behaves as a resonant fluid system, and this resonant behavior justifies their usage as counter-moment generators for sea waves. Although the experimental data come from the naval field, the techniques may be applied to design other tuned liquid damper and tuned sloshing damper devices. The differences with respect to other techniques arise from using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method to perform simulations. With SPH, it is feasible to model large free surface deformations and wave breaking. The results of the simulations have been validated with experimental tests corresponding to real configurations. Against experimental data, we compare pure quantitative physical magnitudes as moment phase lags with respect to tank movement and more qualitative ones as free surface shapes. Although large amplitude waves and breaking waves appear, they are well reproduced and the numerical values of phase lags accord to the experiments. To summarize, the results are promising but further work has yet to be done. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.