Hydroelastic analysis of two dimensional slamming phenomena

In this paper the hydroelastic interaction during the impact of a two mass oscillator over the water surface is analyzed. The system consists of a massive wedge, plunging the free surface, elastically connected to a carried mass. When the wedge impacts, the system is excited by the pulse hydrodynamic force and an oscillatory coupled motion takes place. The attention is focused on a parametric analysis of the maximum of both hydrodynamic and elastic forces originated by the collision. A simplified theoretical model is proposed starting from the slamming force estimated by similarity solutions of an impacting flat plate. This model is validated by comparisons with a numerical simulation of the fluid-structure interaction. The unsteady potential flow is computed through a boundary elements formulation and a fully non linear boundary condition is applied on the free surface. The hydrodynamic load is then used to force the dynamic system. A good agreement between numerical results and theoretical estimate has been found validating the simplified model.