DEVELOPMENT OF A FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION MODEL FOR SIMULATING THE MOVEMENT AND COLLISION OF OIL STORAGE TANKS DUE TO TSUNAMIS

Abstract

 When oil storage tanks are destroyed by a tsunami, they can cause widespread tsunami-induced fires. The behavior of oil storage tanks induced by the tsunami involves the interaction between the structure with fluids inside and the fluid outside the structure. The objective of this study is to establish a simulation method that simultaneously handles the behavior of multiple fluids regions and colliding structures.

 A new Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) model is developed by integrating the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software OpenFOAM with the physics engine Bullet. In OpenFOAM, released by ESI- OpenCFD, there is a solver called overInterDyMFoam, which enables two-phase fluid-structure interaction simulations using the overset mesh method. overInterDyMFoam is improved to calculate multiple fluid domains. In addition, the overset mesh method is also improved using an Immersed Boundary Method to handle fluid behavior near collisions. To calculate the behavior involving contact and collisions, a physics engine Bullet is employed. Bullet is modified to be able to handle structures with fluid, and the effect of the fluid inside is given as a change in the mass distribution. This method is more stable and more appropriate than the method of giving it as an external force, especially when it involves a collision.