Propellant Slosh in Conformal Tanks

As small satellites are increasingly used in the space industry, creative solutions for the use of their limited volume will be required. Conformal tanks are one idea to better make use of this volume. These tanks are non-traditionally shaped and non-axisymmetric. Because slosh can have detrimental effects on a spacecraft, it should be understood. However, slosh in these more complicated geometries has not been thoroughly investigated in the past.

This research looks at slosh within six geometries, five of which are conformal tanks. These geometries are evaluated in both an experiment and using CFD simulations. It was found that the total slosh motion appears to be the sum of slosh behavior along each dimension. Slosh along a line of symmetry will have center of mass movement that stays along that line. Slosh off the line of symmetry will deviate from that line unless slosh frequency is the same in each direction.