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Design and Engineering Technical Conferences &
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ANALYTICAL SOLUTIONS FOR NONLINEAR LATERAL SLOSHING IN PARTIALLY-
FILLED ELLIPTICAL TANKERS
Davood Younesian
School of Railway Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology
Tehran, Iran
younesian@iust.ac.ir
Zia Saadatnia
School of Railway Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology
Tehran, Iran
zia_saadat@rail.iust.ac.ir
ABSTRACT
Dynamic behavior of the large amplitude lateral sloshing is
analytically studied in partially filled elliptical tankers. Theory
of elliptical trammel pendulums is employed for modeling of
the large oscillation of the fluid inside the elliptical container.
Nonlinear governing equation of the motion is derived
employing the Hamilton principle. Standard and modified
Energy Balance Method (EBM) is adopted as the solution
technique. Natural frequencies of the free oscillation are
analytically obtained as a function of the initial amplitude. It is
proved that the nonlinear dynamical system can behave
mutually as a hardening and softening system based on the
tanker aspect ratio. A number of numerical simulations are
carried out and accuracy of the obtained analytical solution is
evaluated.
INTRODUCTION
A quick survey of highway accidents reveals that the
maneuver-induced rollover is the primarily attributed reason for
rollover of the commercial trucks. In case of the partially-filled
tankers, this fact is remarkably enhanced because of the
oscillating forces come up with the oscillatory nature of the
fluid sloshing. Consequently, a lot of attention has been so far
paid to extensively identify the complicated dynamic behavior
of the sloshing.
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Design
Information
andin Engineering Conference
Information Engineering
IDETC/CIE 2011
28-31, 2011, Washington,
August 29-31, Washington, DC,
DC, USA
USA
DETC2011-4
DETC2011-48468
Hassan Askari
School of Railway Engineering
Iran University of Science and Technology
Tehran, Iran
askari.iust@gmail.com
Ebrahim Esmailzadeh
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Oshawa , Ontario, Canada
ezadeh@uoit.ca
Basically two groups of researchers are simultaneously
working on this challenging engineering problem. The first
group researchers are more interested in nature of the fluid
dynamics in sloshing, fluid pressure and velocity fields and
sloshing surface waves. Basically, Navier-Stokes equations of
the fluid motion are focused at this view point for different
boundary conditions matched with container geometries.
Varieties of numerical techniques have been so far
employed in sloshing analysis. Finite Difference Method
(FDM) [1], Finite Element Method (FEM) [2-3], Boundary
Element Method (BEM) [4], Meshless Local PetrovGalerkin
(MLPG) [5], Volume of Fluid (VOF) technique [6-7] are a few
of frequently used techniques in sloshing analysis.
The second group researchers are more focused on the
fluid-vehicle dynamic interactions. Dynamic analysis and
stability of the tanker vehicles including road-trucks, trains,
airplanes and air vehicles is the target of such a perspective.
Nature of the fluid dynamics is molded by an equivalent system
of lumped-mass subsystems. Equivalent mass-spring system,
mass-spring-damper system, circular pendulum and mass-
spring-pendulum system are some examples which have been
extensively reviewed by Ibrahim [8]. Rakheja and Ranganathan
[9] employed the concept of equivalent mass and spring system
and estimated the rollover threshold of heavy vehicles carrying
liquid cargo.
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2011
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 Abzug [10] employed a mass-spring damper equivalent 1 2 1
model and analyzed the influence of sloshing on the stability T mr m(a 2 2 cos 2 b 2 2 sin 2 ) (6)
and control of the airplane. Nichkawde et al. [11] employed the 2 2
simple pendulum concept and studied dynamic stability of a
vehicle interacting with a typical sloshing fluid. Aliabadi et al. U mgb(1 cos ) (7)
employed theory of the finite element method in order to
validate an equivalent circular pendulum model applicable to and eventually by employing the Hamilton principle
simulate sloshing [12]. Wasfy et al. [13-14] experimentally
validated a equivalent multi-body system which can be L
( ) (L ) 0 (8)
employed in sloshing simulation. Salem et al. proposed a new
t ()
concept of the equivalent trammel pendulum to simulate the
fluid sloshing in partially filled elliptic containers [15].
More recently, effects of the fluid sloshing on the train one can reach to
lateral satiability and derailment was numerically investigated
by Younesian et al [16]. In most cases the nonlinear equation of (a cos 2 b sin 2 ) 0.5(b 2 a 2 ) 2 gb sin 0
motions are linearized because of simplicity and lack of any (9)
analytical solutions. There is no doubt that new analytical
techniques including Energy Balance Method (EBM) [17-22]
can provide not only more accurate responses but also they lead
to closed form solutions enhancing engineering judgments.
Nonlinear differential equation of an equivalent trammel
pendulum is derived for fluid sloshing in an elliptic tanker in
this paper. Analytical solutions are obtained using both classical
and modified EBM. Accuracy of the analytical solutions
compared with linear solutions is evaluated in the time domain.
A frequency analysis is carried out and effects of different
parameters including aspect ratio, fill ratio and initial amplitude
on the periodic responses are studied.

MATHEMATICAL MODELING
A partially-filled elliptic tanker is schematically illustrated
in Fig 1-a in which 2a and 2b are the major and minor diameter
of the elliptic container. Accordingly, 2acg and 2bcg are the FIGURE 1: PARTIALLY-FILLED ELLIPTIC TANKER.
major and minor diameter of the Center of Gravity (CG)
contour. An equivalent trammel mechanism Fig 1-b, which
draws an elliptical path, is adopted here to simulate the sloshing
fluid. The aspect ratio and fill ratio are then given by
a
(1)
b
h
F (2)
2b
and according characteristic lengths of the equivalent trammel
pendulum is given by [15]

b b (3)
a b (4)
1.304727 1.542048
2(0.772659 ) F 2 (1.780896 )F 1

(5)

The corresponding potential and kinetic energy are then FIGURE 2: EQUIVALENT TRAMMEL MECHANISM.
given by

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 ENERGY BALANCE METHOD (EBM) NUMERICAL RESULTS
The nonlinear differential equation of motion is A parametric study is carried in this section and nonlinear
analytically solved using the EBM in this section. The behavior of the dynamic system is studied in this section. Time
corresponding variational principle can be obtained as history of the large amplitude oscillation of the fluid is
illustrated in Figure 2 and 3 for three different solution methods
t 1 i.e. numerical integration based on the Runge-Kutta method,
J [ (a cos 2 b sin 2 ) 2 gb cos ] dt (10) classical EBM and modified EBM.
0 2 The nonlinear solutions are compared with the linear
solutions identified by linearized natural frequency of [15]:
followed by the consequent Hamiltonian of
gb
(17)
1 a2
H (a cos2 b sin2 ) gb cos gb cos A (11)
2
Using the initial conditions of

(0) A (0) 0 (12)

and satisfying trial function of A cos t , one can reach

to the following residual

1
R(t) A22 sin2 t (a 2 cos2 ( Acos t) (13)
2
b 2 sin2 ( Acos t)) gb cos(Acos t) gb cos A

The standard EBM is associated with the application of the

collocation method at t . By implementing the standard
4 FIGURE 2: LARGE AMPLITUDE OSCILLATION OF FLUID.
EBM, one can eventually develop the analytical expression for
frequency-amplitude relationship.

2
gb cos( A) cos( A)
2 2 (14)

A 2 2
a 2 cos2 ( A) b sin 2 ( A)
2 2

In order to modify accuracy of the closed form solution

one can combine the Galerkin-Petrov technique with the
standard EBM. Accordingly, integral of the residue vanishes
with the kernel of the trail function so that

T
~
R 4 R(t ) cos 2 t dt 0 (15)
0

FIGURE 3: LARGE AMPLITUDE OSCILLATION OF FLUID.

The closed form frequency amplitude is consequently given by

It is seen both analytical solutions based on the EBM and
2 2 ( gb cos A gb cos(A cost )) cos2 t dt (16)

0 modified EBM satisfactorily matched with the numerical
solutions while the linear solutions noticeably deviate from
0
2 A2 sin2 t cos2 t (a 2 cos2 ( A cost ) b 2 cos2 ( A cost ))dt
them.

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 Dependency and variation of the oscillation frequency with
respect to the initial amplitude is illustrated in Figure 4 for
different values of aspect ratios. It is seen that the natural
behavior is quite dependent not only on the initial amplitude
but also on the aspect ratio.
oscillation. This means that for the aspect ratio of a=1.2 the
nonlinear system behaves as a linear one and the oscillation
frequency is independent of the initial amplitude.

FIGURE 4: NATURAL FREQUENCY VERSUS THE INITIAL

AMPLITUDE FOR DIFFERENT ASPECT RATIOS. FIGURE 6: NATURAL FREQUENCY VERSUS THE INITIAL
AMPLITUDE FOR DIFFERENT FILL RATIOS (A<1.2).

The effects of the fill ratio on the oscillation frequencies

have been illustrated in Figures 5 and 6 for two different values
of a>1.2

FIGURE 7: RELATIVE ERROR VERSUS THE INITIAL

AMPLITUDE (IN DIFFERENT ASPECT RATIOS) and a<1.2.

FIGURE 5: NATURAL FREQUENCY VERSUS THE INITIAL

AMPLITUDE FOR DIFFERENT FILL RATIOS (A>1.2).
In other words, for a circular tank the nonlinear system
behaves as a softening system and for larger aspect ratios than a
specific value (1.2 in our case) it behaves in hardening mode of
It is seen that for the both cases the natural frequency is an
increasing nonlinear function of the fill ratio. In order to
conduct an error analysis, the linear and nonlinear natural
frequencies are compared in Figure 7. It is seen that the relative
error is remarkably enhanced in large amplitudes of
oscillations.

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 Furthermore it is found that for specific initial amplitude,
the relative error increases with increasing in aspect ratios. This
means that linearization in elliptic tanks ends up to a larger
error than a circular tank.
CONCLUSIONS
Large amplitude lateral sloshing was analytically studied in
partially filled elliptical tankers. Standard and modified Energy
Balance Method (EBM) was employed as the solution methods.
Closed form expressions were obtained for frequencies of
nonlinear oscillations as a function of the initial amplitude. A
parametric study was carried out and validity of the analytical
solutions were verified both in time and frequency domains. It
was proved that accuracy of the obtained analytical solutions is
quite satisfactory even for large amplitudes of oscillations. It
was also found that the nonlinear system can behave both as a
hardening and softening system depends on the aspect ratio. It
was also found that there is a specific aspect ratio in which the
oscillation frequency is not dependent on the initial amplitude
just like the standard linear systems. For the aspect ratios larger
and smaller than this specific value the system behaves
respectively as a hardening and softening system. In an error
analysis it was shown that the relative error between the linear
and nonlinear system is noticeable in large amplitudes and it is
amplified when the aspect ratio becomes larger.
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