Effect of Baffles Location on the Rollover Stability of Partially Filled Road Container

Statistics show that almost 10% of the total road accidents are because of the rollover of heavy-duty tankers. The probability of rollover is higher in partially filled tankers than the filled tankers. The higher tendency of rollover accidents in partially filled tankers is because of the liquid sloshing inside the tankers. This rollover inside the tanker results in the dynamic instability of the tanker. The rollover stability is sensitive to the shape of the tanker, the properties of the fluid inside the tanker, the fill level of the tanker and the location of the baffles inside the tanker. The baffles and active rollover control system can be used to overcome the dynamic instability of the heavy-duty tankers. Active control system can limit the dynamic shifting of Center of Gravity (C.G). Baffles on the other hand found to be more effective in terms of minimizing the dynamic moments and forces on the tanker's wall. Different baffle configurations can be used to reduce the liquid sloshing effect. However, this research is mainly focus on determining the effect of different locations of horizontal baffles for different fill level of an elliptical tank. The effect of baffle location was analyzed numerically in terms of dynamic moments and forces. The numerical modeling was performed using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method and the commercial CFD tool CFD-RC. The post analysis was done using custom computer codes to evaluate the resultant dynamic forces and moments.