Crushing Simulation of a Partially Filled Fuel Tank Beyond Failure

The crushing of a partially filled fuel tank is an important aspect of rear impact safety. A simulation will be presented of this event, where the fuel tank contains both fuel and air, and is crushed beyond failure. The simulation process starts with proper initialization of the fuel and air inside the tank under gravity loading, after which the fuel tank will be crushed between a wall and a moving rigid barrier. Once the fuel tank material fails, fuel leakage will be predicted.

Multiple, adaptive Euler domains are used to model the baffles inside the tank and the surrounding air. Since the model includes fuel and air, a multi-material Euler solver is required.

The simulation is performed with MSC.Dytran.