Water entry and exit of a body is an important topic in naval hydrodynamics as these phenomena play relevant roles both for offshore structures and vessels. Water entry and exit events are intrinsically transient and represent intense topological changes in the system, with large amounts of momentum exchange between phases. At its onset, they can be characterized by highly localized, both in space and time, loads on the vessel, influencing both the local structural safety of the structure and the global loads acting on it.
The DualSPHysics code is proposed as a numerical tool for the simulation of fluid and floating object interaction. The numerical model is based on a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations and Newton’s equations for rigid body dynamics. This paper examines the water impact, fluid motions, and movement of objects in the conventional case studies of object entry and exit from still water. A two dimensional body drop analysis was carried out demonstrating acceptable agreement of the movement of the object with published experimental and numerical results. The velocity field of the fluid is also captured and analyzed. Simulations for water entry and exit of a buoyant and neutral density cylinder compares well with previous experimental, numerical, and empirical studies in penetration, free surface evolution and object kinematics. These results provide a good foundation to evaluate the accuracy and stability of the DualSPHysics implementation for modeling the interaction between free surface flow and free moving floating objects.
Numerical Assessment of Similitude Parameters and Dimensional Analysis for Water Entry Problems
