Data-driven parameter identification of an equivalent mechanical model for large amplitude liquid sloshing

The accurate extraction of model parameters is vital to ensure that the equivalent mechanical model can precisely describe the dynamic behavior of large amplitude liquid sloshing. In this paper, the parameters of the moving pulsating ball model (MPBM), which is an equivalent mechanical model used to represent the large amplitude liquid sloshing, are extracted using a combination of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), experimental data, and data-driven algorithms. The arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian finite element method (ALE-FEM) is adopted to simulate three-dimension large amplitude liquid sloshing in the tank with high precision. The calculated results from the presented algorithm are compared with the experimental data to verify the reliability and validity. The typical parameters required by the MPBM mainly include equivalent sloshing mass, equivalent ball radius, and damping coefficient. These parameters are extracted by using a data-driven parameter optimization algorithm, which is based on the numerical calculation results of ALE-FEM. The accuracy of the MPBM with the equivalent model parameters extracted by using data-driven parameter optimization algorithm is investigated under two types of excitations: harmonic excitation and step excitation. The results show that the MPBM with equivalent model parameters extracted by a data-driven parameter optimization algorithm can precisely imitate the large amplitude liquid sloshing behavior and the method presented can provide significant reference for the overall design of spacecraft dynamics system.