Numerical simulation of dam breaking and the influence of sloshing on the transfer of water between compartments

Dam breaking and sloshing are hydrodynamic phenomena of great importance in the assessment of progressive flooding of ships and offshore platforms. Recent experimental tests have generated more data with different configurations of openings and flooded compartments. The internal geometry of the compartments is important on the behavior and impact of the flooded water on the vessel motion. In this paper, a computational code is validated to simulate dam breaking and sloshing with two different configurations. Numerical results were obtained for recent experiments on transfer of water between connected neighboring compartments with two configurations of openings. The comparison with experimental data validated the numerical code and showed some important details of the flow field. The two configurations of sloshing are excited in sway motion, where certain amount of water flows from one side to the other through an opening and the other way round. The implemented numerical scheme is based on the finite difference method, where the Euler equations are solved using an upwind total variation diminishing scheme with a structured computational mesh.