Suppression of sloshing in liquefied natural gas during ocean-going transportation by using spherical floaters and blanket

Abstract

Malaysia National Key Economic Area (NKEA) is endeavouring to promote the liquefied natural gas (LNG) as one of the dominant greener energy resources which significantly benefits Malaysia as the world's third-largest exporter of LNG. However, safer sea transportation of LNG is in high demands because sloshing of liquid bulks can cause structural damage and disastrous safety issue towards the LNG carrier. Conventional methods, such as baffle inside the liquid tank still has major problems as it could be damaged by very violent liquid sloshing and require regular inspection. On the other hand, floaters and blanket have been proven as a more effective solution. However, a better understanding of the behaviours of floaters and blanket is needed to design more effective anti-sloshing devices, which have huge potential benefits to Malaysian LNG transporters. In this paper, sloshing experiment under random unidirectional excitations was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of liquid surface suppression by using floaters and blanket. The results of the liquid free surface without suppressors, liquid surface covered by scattered floaters and liquid surface covered by blanket were analysed and discussed. The findings are expected to contribute to the design of anti-sloshing devices towards safer sea transportation of LNG which could largely benefit our nation.