Simulation, analysis and optimal design of fuel tank of a locomotive

In this paper, fuel tank of the locomotive ER 24 has been studied. Firstly the behavior of fuel and air during the braking time has been investigated by using a two-phase model. Then, the distribution of pressure on the surface of baffles caused by sloshing has been extracted. Also, the fuel tank has been modeled and analyzed using Finite Element Method (FEM) considering loading conditions suggested by the DIN EN 12663 standard and real boundary conditions. In each loading condition, high stressed areas have been identified. By comparing the distribution of pressure caused by sloshing phenomena and suggested loading conditions, optimization of the tank has been taken into consideration. Moreover, internal baffles have been investigated and by modifying their geometric properties, search of the design space has been done to reach the optimal tank. Then, in order to reduce the mass and manufacturing cost of the fuel tank, Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been employed. It is shown that compared to the primary design, the optimized fuel tank not only provides the safety conditions, but also reduces mass and manufacturing cost by %39 and %73, respectively.