Numerical Study of the Magnetic Damping Effect on the Sloshing of Liquid Oxygen in a Propellant Tank

Abstract

Nowadays, the use of baffle plates is anticipated to be one of potential devices used to dampen the sloshing of propellant in rocket tanks. However, some of previous studies reported that the use of a baffle plate may cause larger pressure fluctuations in the tank. In this study, aiming at damping the sloshing without a baffle plate, we paid attention to the characteristic that liquid oxygen is paramagnetic and numerically investigated damping effect of a magnetic field when liquid oxygen sloshing occurs. An incompressible gas–liquid two-phase flow of gaseous oxygen and liquid oxygen was assumed in a spherical spacecraft tank with a diameter of 1 m in a non-gravitational field, and a triangular impact force was assumed to be imposed as the excitation force. In addition, an electric circular coil was placed outside the spherical tank to generate a static magnetic field. For the sake of simplicity, the effect of heat was not taken into consideration. As a result of computation, the sloshing was damped to a certain extent when the magnetic flux density at the coil center was 1.0 T, and a sufficient damping effect was obtained by setting it to 3.0 T. In fact, it is anticipated that less than 3.0 T is sufficient if the coil is placed on the tank surface. This may contribute to damping of the movement of the center of gravity of a spacecraft and prevention of mixing of ullage gas into the piping.