Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The objective of the proposed research is to develop numerical methods to compute the violent sloshing in Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tank and its coupling effect on ship motion. The high demand of natural gas has led to dramatic changes of LNG terminals and transportation systems due to new trade routes and operational conditions. The sloshing phenomenon becomes a challenging issue in LNG carrier design, especially when LNG carriers are getting large in size and the shipping lines are demanding more flexible operating conditions such as partial filling of LNG tanks and operations in Arctic seas. In rough sea conditions, LNG ships can experience extreme loads due to sloshing. The internal sloshing flows in tanks can not only cause damages of inner hull structures, but also affect the motion of the LNG ship. It is important to predict the sloshing flow due to ship motion and its effect on the ship motion. The proposed project will focus on the development of numerical tools for the computation of sloshing flow and its coupling with motions of LNG ships. The research is summarized as follows: (1) A conservative form of the constrained interpolation profile (CIP) method will be developed for the computation of 3D sloshing flow; (2) A fully nonlinear time-domain method will be developed to compute ship motions in extreme seas. The ship motions will be coupled with sloshing; (3) Validation studies will be carried out for the coupled motion. Through the proposed research, highly qualified personnel in the area of marine hydrodynamics with strong computational skill will be trained. The proposed research will contribute nationally and internationally to the field of ship and offshore hydrodynamics, especially numerical studies of nonlinear ship motions and highly nonlinear free surface flow.