Comparison of CFD Calculations And Experiment For the Dambreak Experiment With One Flexible Wall

The dambreak experiment is a widely used test case for validation of CFD methods and is applied here to examine sloshing physics. Wave profiles and impact pressure profiles for the dambreak experiment are to some extent representative of those in a 2D sloshing tank. Available data from experiments show a high pressure peak for the first fluid impact. Numerical investigation of liquid dynamics and the resulting impact on the wall of the experimental chamber is presented. Interaction between fluid and structure is investigated by studying several cases with either rigid or flexible walls. Two numerical approaches are considered and their results are compared with experimental data. The first, CFD code ComFLOW, solves Navier-Stokes equations by the Finite Volume Method and uses an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method to track free surface movement. Walls of the chamber are modelled as rigid. One-phase and two-phase fluid models are applied, the latter being capable of simulating bubbles and gas entrapped in liquid. The second approach employs Finite Elements and a well-known commercial FEM code, LS-DYNA, is used. Fluid flow modelling options include an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian scheme, which is applied here to compute liquid dynamics and impact loads on tank walls. Cases with rigid and flexible walls are examined to investigate fluid-structure interaction.