Electrostatic potential and field in a cylindrical tank containing charged liquid

If a metal tank is partly filled by charged liquid, such as hydrocarbons, the electrostatic potential can become very high and hazardous. In order to determine this potential, one must solve the Poisson and the Laplace equations simultaneously. With a cylindrical tank configuration, an analytical solution was obtained by using Bessel functions. Numerical computation of the model was performed and it can be shown that the convergence of the series solution is reasonably acceptable. The computed results are shown for a particular model. In order to estimate a maximum potential and field strength in the gas space for general configuration of a tank, more practical equations were derived.