Influence of slosh baffles on thermodynamic performance in liquid hydrogen tank

A calibrated CFD model is built to investigate the influence of slosh baffles on the pressurization performance in liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank. The calibrated CFD model is proven to have great predictive ability by compared against the flight experimental results. The pressure increase, thermal stratification and wall heat transfer coefficient of LH2 tank have been detailedly studied. The results indicate that slosh baffles have a great influence on tank pressure increase, fluid temperature distribution and wall heat transfer. Owning to the existence of baffles, the stratification thickness increases gradually with the distance from tank axis to tank wall. While for the tank without baffles, the stratification thickness decreases firstly and then increases with the increase of the distance from the axis. The “M” type stratified thickness distribution presents in tank without baffles. One modified heat transfer coefficient correlation has been proposed with the change of fluid temperature considered by multiplying a temperature correction factor. It has been proven that the average relative prediction errors of heat transfer coefficient reduced from 19.08% to 4.98% for the wet tank wall of the tank, from 8.93% to 4.27% for the dry tank wall, respectively, calculated by the modified correlation.