Hydrodynamic Impact on Wedges During Water Entry

The problem of water entry of wedges represents one of the most classic research topics in fluid mechanics. Along the past decades, many different analytical methods have been proposed to calculate pressure distribution and peak loads during the water entry, such as Wagner (1932) and Dobrovol’skaya (1969). Zhao and Faltinsen (1993) and Mei (1995) present numerical solutions based on potential theory assumptions (inviscid, irrotational and incompressible flow). For more complex geometries and cases these methods might not be accurate enough due to the simplifications assumed, and in these cases the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) might be an interest tool to provide more accurate analysis. This work presents CFD results for different conditions of water entry of 2D wedges. The simulations were performed with a marine dedicated flow solver, FINE™/Marine from NUMECA, which features an unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) solver and a finite volume method to perform spatial discretization. The multiphase flow is represented through the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method for incompressible and nonmiscible fluids. Different water entry conditions are explored. The effect of the mesh size, time step and other setup parameters over the results are discussed for simulations with 2D wedges to extend to other studies of water impact. The wedge velocity and hydrodynamic pressure distribution along the model’s face are monitored during the water entry and compared to experimental data from previous publication (Yettou et al, 2006) for water entry of wedges during free fall.