Computer modeling of liquid-solid impacts

A mathematical model is formulated in the framework of the potential theory to describe the impact of a bore on a rigid wall. The solution of the resulting free-interface flow problem is numerically approximated by a tracking method of new conception. Basically, the free interface separating liquid and air is assumed to be a free fluid line. Its shape and location are tracked in time by numerically solving the evolutive equations of a set of interface node positions and potentials. The evolutive equations are derived from Bernoulli's law and are integrated by the Crank-Nicholson method. As the shape of the computational domain evolves in time, the domain is fully re-meshed at each time step, and a new steady mixed Dirichlet-Neumann Laplacian problem is formulated and solved by applying the R T0 mixed finite element method. This potential flow solver has been validated by simulating the liquid-solid impact of a bore against a rigid wall and comparing the numerical results with the available experimental measurements.