EARLY STAGE OF FLOATING PLATE IMPACT

The liquid flow and the free surface shape at the initial stage of impulsive vertical motion of a floating rigid plate are investigated with the help of a small time expansion procedure. It is shown that the initial flow close to the plate edges is approximately self-similar and is governed by non-linear boundary-value problem with unknown shape of the free surface. Outside of small vicinities of the plate edges the flow is given by the pressure-impulse theory. The non-linear self-similar inner solution is matched to the outer solution and obtained numerically by the boundary-element method. Agreement of the computed free surface shape with experimental one is fairly good.