Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Ship Rolling Motion Response Coupled With Liquid Sloshing

This paper investigates the coupled dynamics of a ship carrier with sloshing inside three liquid tanks at varying filling depths, employing both experimental and numerical methods. Two obvious peaks for ship rolling motion are captured when sloshing exists in the liquid tank. One peak occurs earlier and the other occurs later than the peak of ship rolling motion without sloshing. The coupling motion results reveal the existence of the natural period of sloshing and the natural periods of ship-tank system rolling motion. The natural period of sloshing always corresponds to the trough between the first and the second peak. The biggest difference between the two peaks is the opposite phase relationship between ship-tank motion and the fluid motion inside tanks. The experimental free decay test can only predict one of the two periods (corresponding to the two peaks) of ship rolling motion. A new numerical coupling model is developed and it can simulate the ship motion coupled sloshing precisely.