Validation of high fidelity CFD/FE FSI for full-scale high-speed planing hull with composite bottom panels slamming

High fidelity CFD/FE FSI (Computational Fluid Dynamics/Finite Element Fluid- Structure Interaction) code development and validation by full-scale experiments is presented, for the analysis of hydrodynamic and structural slamming responses. A fully instrumented 9 meter high speed-planing hull with sterndrive is used. Starboard and port bottom panels are constructed with different composite materials and fiber orientations, allowing for study of the relation between structural properties and slamming. The code CFDShip-Iowa is employed for CFD simulations and the commercial FE code ANSYS is used as structural solver. The hydrodynamic simulations include captive (2DOF without sterndrive) and 6DOF free running conditions for various Froude numbers in calm water and regular waves. Calm water simulations compares well with the experimental data and 1D empirical data provided by the sterndrive manufacturer for resistance, heave, pitch and roll motions. Numerical one-way coupling FSI is performed in head and following regular waves representative of sea-trial conditions, using FE models for two bottom panels. The resulting strains are compared with experimental data showing a good qualitative and quantitative agreement.