Investigations on the hydroelastic slamming of deformable wedges by using the smoothed particle element method

Abstract

The nonlinearity and time-dependent nature of hydroelastic slamming along with violent fluid–structure interactions (FSIs) and evolution of free surfaces present great challenges to the numerical modeling. The inherent physical mechanisms of such a violent FSI involved with structural vibrations have not been well investigated so far. In this work, an adaptive element–particle coupling approach is extended to reveal the underlying mechanisms of hydroelastic slamming, which leverages the advantages of grid-based method in accurately modeling structural deformations and fluid flows with small deformations as well as particle method in effectively capturing moving interfaces. After well validating with experimental results, we focus on investigating the flow physics and hydrodynamic loads along with structural hydroelastic performances including wedge kinematics and dynamic responses. It is demonstrated that the plate deformation has minimal influence on the maximum hydrodynamic load in normal slamming, whereas it has significant effects in oblique slamming. Both rolling free surfaces and waves around the plate ends may affect the distribution of hydrodynamic loads on the elastic structure. For kinematics and dynamic responses of the structure under slamming loads, different configurations of deformation and stages of motion are identified. With increasing deadrise angle, the structural deformation becomes more pronounced and later gets smaller for a large structural flexibility. However, it may decrease in a direct manner with an increase in the deadrise angle when a smaller plate flexibility is adopted. Further, the important phenomenon of structural vibration is studied with typical influencing factors analyzed. A novel empirical formulation is proposed to predict vibrational characteristics of the wedge during hydroelastic slamming processes. This relation is unified and applicable for a broad of scenarios from normal to oblique slamming.