Cavity dynamics of smooth sphere and golf ball at low Froude numbers, part 1: high-speed imaging and quantitative measurements

Abstract

Investigation into the importance of water entry at low Froude numbers has been of interest since 1932. Implementation of imaging into the study has offered insight of cavity dynamics and influence of variables such as buoyancy, symmetry of the body, and hydrophobicity of the impacting body. Use of CCD camera toward water entry assisted in defining cavity boundary. In this work, a steel smooth ball and a golf ball that is considered as an irregular sphere were experimented and compared. In order to validate the baseline results, gathered image and analysis for the smooth sphere were strongly correlated to available literature data. In the concluding analysis, analogies to the works of flat plate analysis in the literature were drawn in nonsymmetrical bodies. The contribution of this body of work relies on a 3D comparison to the 2D plate analyzed by the available data based on the principles of Wagner theory and graphical comparisons.