Dynamic simulation of sloshing fluid and granular cargo in transport vehicles

Abstract

The driving stability of transport vehicles is significantly affected by the type of cargo that is transported and the design of the tank. Cargo motion can have both beneficial and negative aspects in terms of driving stability and braking performance. Neglecting the influence of the dynamically moving cargo in driving simulations leads to significant errors in the simulation results. We propose a new method for the dynamic simulation of tank trucks carrying fluids and silo vehicles carrying granulates. The method couples Lagrangian particle methods, such as smoothed particle hydrodynamics for fluids or the discrete element method for granular media, and multibody systems using co-simulations. The capability of the new approach is demonstrated by providing simulation results of two benchmark manoeuvres and the behaviour of fluid and granular cargo is compared.

Keywords:

• sloshing
• co-simulation
• smoothed particle hydrodynamics
• discrete element method
• multibody system dynamics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank M.Sc. Vincenzo D'Alessandro from Polytecnico Milano, Italy, for providing the Simpack vehicle model.