A Coupled SPH-FEM Solver for Modeling Surface Effect Ship (SES) Bow Seal Dynamics

The life of Surface Effect Ship (SES) bow and finger seals are often short-lived due to a combination of environmental effects and dynamic loading due to high-speed operation. Improving SES seal robustness requires a deeper understanding of the dynamics and loads seen by SES skirt seals during operation. In this work, we present the results of a validation study performed for a coupled, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) - finite element method (FEM) solver developed to study fluid-structure impact and free-surface flow interaction with hyper-elastic structures. This work continues and extends the earlier coupled SPH-FEM approach of Yang et al. [1]. Numerical predictions for skirt seal displacement are compared against the experimental observations of Zalek and Doctors performed by the Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory at the University of Michigan [2].