A numerical study on mitigation of sloshing in a rectangular tank using floating foams

In this paper, the feasibility of using floating foams as a mitigation device to suppress water sloshing in a rectangular tank is numerically investigated. The sloshing in the tank is initiated using a harmonic excitation. To perform 3D numerical simulations, the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian technique (ALE) in the commercial soft-ware ABAQUS is utilized. The results of the model are validated by comparing the results of simulations with those of the experiments both quantitatively and qualitatively. Next, the efficacy of floating foams in suppressing water sloshing is evaluated for different cases with various layers of foam ranging from zero to three layers. In addition, the effects of various parameters on the wave height and kinetic energy variations are comprehensively analyzed. These parameters include water depth, density, friction factor, diameter of plastic foam spheres, fre-quency, amplitude and type of excitation. The numerical results show that the interactions between floating foams play a major role in mitigating water sloshing. Furthermore, the effects of plastic foam densities on decreasing the wave height are minor. A twofold increase in the foam density decreases the maximum kinetic energy by 9.68% and an almost threefold increase in the foam density reduces the maximum kinetic energy by 29.03%.