Flexible V-Shaped Wedge Water Entry: When is One-Way Coupling Good Enough?*

Slamming events occur very frequently in high-speed craft and reduce the operational envelope of a vessel. Vertical wedge drop tests simulating the vertical slamming of a ship cross-section give some fundamental insights into the physics of the fluid-structure interaction problem. In this work, a flexible wedge was vertically dropped into calm water. The structural deflection was measured using stereoscopic digital image correlation, and the pressure was resolved using an array of eight pressure sensors along the midline of one side of the wedge bottom. Other quantities measured include vertical position and acceleration of the wedge, and strains on the wedge bottom. A relationship between the nondimensional pressure coefficient and plate deflection will be proposed based on experimental results. Theoretically, there is a critical value of nondimensional deflection beyond which the pressure coefficient will be influenced by the structural response. A one-way coupling between Vorus’ theory and shear deformation plate theory was found to match well with experiments when the structural deflection was small.