Prediction Of Slamming Force On Flying-Boat

Prediction of hydrodynamic loads during water impact is of great significance in the structural design of flying vehicles. Also the importance of the slam force of waves on the members of offshore structures cannot be overemphasized. No theoretical tool is available to handle this complicated phenomenon exactly and the experimental procedures in the laboratory are both time-consuming and expensive. In this paper, a computer program based on the VOF method is applied to evaluate the water impact outcome in a real situation. To asses the capabilities of the CFD code, two classical problems including water impact of a wedge and a circular cylinder traveling at constant speeds are studied. In a real situation the descend velocity is decreased by the impact loads known as “deceleration effect”. This change in speed is taken into account in an iterative procedure and the flow field around the base of a WIG craft is computed. All flow field computations in this study include the effects of viscosity, turbulence, gravity and surface tension. The comparison of results with experimental data shows the efficiency and correctness of this straightforward iterative method.