Hydrodynamic Theories of Ship Slamming Review and Extension

Abstract

A critical review and evaluation of existing hydrodynamic theories of body-water impact is presented. It is shown, partly by comparison with available experimental data, that fitting methods are adequate only for bodies of reasonably large deadrise angle during later stages of the impact process. The ellipse-fitting technique is extended to a much broader class of body forms and more accurate formulations of the general problem are proposed that avoid linearization of the free-surface boundary condition and can account for compressibility effects during the initial stage of impact, although numerical procedures must be employed.