Water entry of an expanding wedge/plate with flow detachment

Abstract

A general similarity solution for water-entry problems of a wedge with its inner angle fixed and its sides in expansion is obtained with flow detachment, in which the speed of expansion is a free parameter. The known solutions for a wedge of a fixed length at the initial stage of water entry without flow detachment and at the final stage corresponding to Helmholtz flow are obtained as two special cases, at some finite and zero expansion speeds, respectively. An expanding horizontal plate impacting a flat free surface is considered as the special case of the general solution for a wedge inner angle equal to ${\rm\pi}$. An initial impulse solution for a plate of a fixed length is obtained as the special case of the present formulation. The general solution is obtained in the form of integral equations using the integral hodograph method. The results are presented in terms of free-surface shapes, streamlines and pressure distributions.