Experimental and numerical study for dynamic characteristics of truck fuel tank based on fluid-structure interaction

It was revealed that the fuel tank containing 50% fuel was inclined to damage in truck road test. Thus, numerical simulation and experiment were combined to explore the vibration characteristics of the fuel tank with different liquid-filling ratios. The Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) vibration of the fuel tank is associated with its service life and dynamic characteristics. The FSI model was employed for modal analysis of natural frequencies and mode shapes of the fuel tank, in which the corresponding vibration response behaviours were obtained. The results of modal analysis revealed that modal frequency of the fuel tank with 50% fuel fluctuated significantly, and then random vibration analysis aimed at the fuel tank with 50% fuel. By extracting the welded joints' stress of horizontal, longitudinal and vertical directions, the horizontal direction was ascertained as the harsh direction. Subsequently, the random vibration simulation and experiment were conducted with the RMS of 2 g, 4 g and 6 g, respectively, finding that the calculation error is within 5% compared with the experimental data, which verified the correctness of the proposed numerical simulation. © 2021 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.. All rights reserved.