Water impact of an asymmetric floating wedge

The flow generated during the early stage of the impact of an asymmetric wedge is here investigated, with the help of a conformal-mapping technique. The wedge is assumed to be initially at rest and floating on a still free surface of an inviscid and incompressible liquid. The study is aimed at understanding the main features of the flow that develops in the vicinity of the apex of the wedge. Due to the inviscid-fluid assumption, a velocity (and pressure) singularity takes place at the apex of asymmetric wedges, which is here removed by reintroducing viscous effects, in terms of the shedding of a wake from the apex. In the present numerical approach, the wake is modelled through point vortices, circulations of which are provided via a suitable Kutta condition. Attention being focused at the early stage of the impact, the free surface is kept during the penetration of the body. This allows the use of an asymmetric extension of Sedov's solution to describe the flow field generated by the wedge entry. Changes induced by the vortical flow on the velocity field and on the pressure distribution on the wedge are discussed.