ELASTIC RESPONSE OF CATAMARAN WETDECK TO LIQUID IMPACT

The impact of an elastic plate onto the compressible fluid without fre e surface deformation is considered. The ability of the liquid volume to be deformed is geometrically limited which leads to severe impact c onditions. The present analysis is focused on the stresses in the plat e and the hydrodynamic loads under the impact. The motivation for this research comes from ship hydrodynamics, where the hulls of a catamara n restrict the liquid outflow and the water impacts onto the wetdeck. The influence of the air on the impact process is investigated. The an alysis did not reveal any great advantage of utilizing the air-cushion effect or ejection of air into the water near the impact region to pr event high stresses in the elastic plate. It was found that in the pro blem considered, the stress peaks far from the plate centre and the on e-mode approximation does not provide correct information about the st ress level. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.