Forces acting on the ship hull during the impact on the water surface can be significant and may result in permanent deformation. In extreme cases this may lead to structural failure, which makes simulation of hull slamming loads an important part of the ship design process.http://wikki.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/slammingHull.pn
Wikki Ltd has created a methodology to simulate the slamming process with CFD. This work was part of the EU-project TULCS (Tools for Ultra Large Container Ships).
The application tracks the moving hull boundary through mesh motion with prescribed non-linear displacement. The mesh itself is not deformed, which preserved the original mesh quality. Spline interpolation is used to maintain smooth time-derivative values, which is crucial for obtaining continuous impact forces. Various methods for interface sharpening methods can be applied based on either numerical discritization or additional transport equation terms.
If you are interested in employing foam-extend or OpenFOAM for naval hydrodynamics applications, please contact us.
