Damping computation of liquid sloshing in containers aboard spacecraft

Abstract

Under the non-rotating assumption, a method for the calculation of damping of fuel sloshing with small amplitude in containers aboard spacecraft is proposed in the present paper. And we have presented an eigen-value equation for sloshing damping and frequency computation. This equation may be solved by Ritz or Galerkin methods for a container of simple geometry or by finite element method for a container of arbitrary geometric shape even with rigid baffles. The simulated results show that the equivalent damping coefficients is directly proportional to fuel's viscosity, whereas it almost exhibits no influence on sloshing frequencies. The drawback of the proposed method lies in expensive computation cost. Thus far, it hasn't yet be applied to a container with elastic baffles.