Free Surface Flow Generated by the Water Impact of a Flat Plate

The free surface flow generated by a flat plate impacting the water with a constant entry velocity is investigated numerically for both two-dimensional and axisymmetric cases. The plate is initially floating on the free surface and is assumed to start suddenly its vertical motion. The liquid is ideal and incompressible, and gravity and surface tension effects are not taken into account. The work is mainly focused on the development of a numerical procedure that can handle the peculiar features of the free surface dynamics for such flows and provide an accurate estimate of the resulting hydrodynamic loads. The details of the numerical approach are described and differences between the two-dimensional and the axisymmetric solvers are highlighted. Numerical simulations are presented which cover very wide ranges of time and length scales. Results are presented in terms of free surface shape, pressure distribution and total hydrodynamic load on the plate and comparisons with theoretical estimates are established where available.