Sloshing Dynamics and Its Impact on Ship Stability and Safety

Sloshing dynamics pose significant challenges to ship stability and operational safety across various maritime contexts. These dynamic fluid movements primarily result from vessel motions, such as rolling, pitching, and acceleration, leading to complex interactions among the liquid, containment geometry, and external forces. Sloshing can result in nonlinear and chaotic behaviours that induce substantial hydrodynamic loads and moments on a ship’s structure, with critical implications for both intact and damaged stability. This phenomena need to be comprehensively studied and understood to assess its impact on ship operational safety. The current study synthesizes recent knowledge in sloshing dynamics and advances in the modelling, analysis, and mitigation of sloshing phenomena, incorporating high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD), particle-based methods such as Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) methods, as well as experimental validations. The coupling between sloshing-induced internal forces and external wave actions is highlighted as a crucial factor in predicting ship responses and informing the operational safety envelope. Furthermore, emphasis is placed on the compounded risks in harsh environments, such as Arctic regions, where ice accumulation and intensified metocean conditions exacerbate stability challenges. While exploring the advances in sloshing dynamics, the study highlights key research gaps, including scaling experimental results, unifying multi-physics models, and integrating machine learning for predictive resilience. By critically evaluating both the detrimental impacts and technological responses to liquid sloshing, this study finds that existing knowledge is incomplete and provides strategic insights for ship designers, operators, and regulators, aiming to advance maritime safety and sustainability through interdisciplinary research and innovation.