Suggested Citation:
Choi, Jongho, Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, Marti M. Sarigul-Klijn (2006) Liquid Sloshing In Flexible Tanks Under Thruster Firing For Orbit Adjustment. Proceedings of the 42nd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit

This paper presents two different approaches to predict propellant sloshing and its effects on spacecraft center of mass location during a simulated thrusting burn. The spacecraft model composed of two identical multiple flexible propellant tanks and a rigid structure. The first approach allows inclusion of tank structure flexibilities and is an improved Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) coupling method. The rigid and flexible structures are modeled using non-linear explicit Finite Element (FE) and Finite Volume (FV) methods. The second approach is based on liquid pendulum model using the multi-body dynamic method (MBM) of Kane’s dynamics. This time, the dynamic motion and fluid fluctuation inside the tanks are investigated without taking into account the flexibility effects. The pendulum parameters are obtained from earlier investigations that used linear liquid wave theory. The effects of propellant sloshing on center of mass location during a simulated thrusting burn are presented using two different approaches. Different fill rates and effects of inclusion of tank flexibilities in slosh dynamics predictions are studied.