Numerical study of the wave-induced slamming force on the elastic plate based on MPS-FEM coupled method

Slamming is the phenomenon of structure impacting the water surface. It always results in the extremely high load on the structure. This paper is mainly concerned with the slamming force caused by the wave-plate interaction. In this paper, the process of solitary wave impacting onto the horizontal plate is simulated with the help of the moving particle semi-implicit and finite element coupled method (MPS-FEM). The MPS method is adopted to calculate the fluid domain while the structural domain is solved by FEM method. In the first series of simulations, the profiles of the solitary waves with various amplitudes, which are generated in the numerical wave tank, are compared with the theoretical results. Thereafter the interaction between the solitary waves and a rigid plate is simulated. The effects of wave amplitude, as well as the elevation of the plate above the initial water level, on the slamming force are numerically investigated. The calculated results are compared with the available experimental data. Finally, the interactions between the solitary waves and the elastic plate are also simulated. The effects of the structural flexibility on the wave-induced force are analyzed by the comparison between the cases with elastic and the rigid plate.