Decreasing the Sloshing effect on Ships (DeSloSH)

Abstract

The sloshing phenomenon in sea going vessels defines the motion of a liquid in a partially-filled tank generated by external forces. This motion consequently generates inertial loads upon a vessel, potentially bringing about vessel instability and compromising the tank structural integrity.

The maritime industry has carried out investigations to identify the stability effects of sloshing in partially-filled cargo tanks. Accordingly, tank-fill limitations have been acknowledged as precautions to prevent high-impact sloshing damage. The Maritime industry imposes a limitation defined that the vessel can only carry a volume-fill lower than 10% or higher than 70% of the height of the tank. This restriction, however, limits commercial transactions, specifically when handling spot trades and offshore loading/unloading at multiple ports along a shipping route.

The principal objective behind DeSloSH is enhancing the holistic safety and reliability of fuel-transporting vessels by designing a low-cost sloshing-suppressive infrastructure within storage tanks. DeSloSH shall address the logistic problem by exploring and developing internal-tank structural design configurations to suppress the sloshing dynamics to enable vessels to safely travel with tanks filled between the 10% to 70%-fill prohibited range. By physically hindering the causation of the high-impact damage, this design shall offer a solution to the currently existing safety gap, permitting seaworthiness at all volume-fills; this beneficial advancement in vessel tank technology shall enhance economic trading.

The suppression of the dynamics at this threshold have not been addressed by local or international projects; the EU has promoted sloshing, yet solely on air, space, and land craft. The objectives of the project effectively focus on this knowledge gap via the development of a novel internal vessel tank structural design to suppress sloshing dynamics; the innovation lies in dissipating the sloshing accelerations prior to gaining excessive momentum. By means of an experimentation rig, the influencing factors of the internal structure characteristics will be explored in relation to the fill-volume (between 10% to 70%-fill), to establish a dataset through which mathematical optimisation will be carried out. Moving forward, virtual numerical simulations will be carried out to attain validation of the experimentation and extend it to full-scale analysis of a real-scale vessel. Having established a data-driven knowledge of the damping capabilities of the internal tank structure, commercialisation will initiate primarily with potential patent applications and paper publications, and followed by establishing stakeholders via promotion endeavours to acquire investors and customers.