Abstract:

Three dimensional large-amplitude liquid sloshing in the spherical containers is numerically simulated using arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) finite element method. A novel mesh moving algorithm is proposed to update the mesh. The mesh nodes on the free surface and contact line are restricted to move along the prescribed orbits, the nodes on the wet wall are moved by an algebraic mesh moving algorithm, and the interior nodal velocities are determined by solving the Laplace equation. Meanwhile the characteristic based split (CBS) scheme is adopted to deal with the numerical oscillations arising from the convection term. The numerical results agree well with the published experimental data, which shows that the proposed algorithm is feasible and effective.

Key words: Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE), Mesh moving algorithm, Spherical container, Liquid sloshing, Free liquid level