An improved SPH method for modeling liquid sloshing dynamics

Smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a popular meshfree, Lagrangian particle method with attractive features in modeling liquid sloshing dynamics, which is usually associated with changing and breakup of free surfaces, strong turbulence and vortex, and violent fluid-solid interaction. This paper presents an improved SPH method for modeling liquid sloshing dynamics. Firstly, modified schemes for approximating density (density correction) and kernel gradient (kernel gradient correction, or KGC) have been used to achieve better accuracy with smoother pressure field. Secondly, the Reynolds Averaged turbulence model is incorporated into the SPH method to describe the turbulence effects. Thirdly, a coupled dynamic solid boundary treatment (SBT) algorithm has been proposed to improve the accuracy near the solid boundary areas. The new SBT algorithm consists of a kernel-like, soft repulsive force between approaching fluid and solid particles, and a reliable numerical approximation scheme for estimating field functions of virtual solid particles. Three numerical examples are modeled using this improved SPH method, and the obtained numerical results agree well with experimental observations and results from other sources. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.