Mechanical performance evaluation of sandwich panels exposed to slamming impacts: Comparison between experimental and SPH results

Slamming is a dynamic phenomenon in which a high magnitude pulse peak pressure occurs in a short time duration when the bottom structure of a ship impacted against the sea surface. This phenomenon can cause damage in the structure due to fluid-structure interaction (FSI) thus, plays a vital role in designing and manufacturing of ships for naval applications. In this paper, high performance sandwich structure, having many opportunities and challenges for the marine structural design, were studied experimentally using a high-speed shock test machine to examine the water entry problem. In addition, a velocity control system was used to calibrate and preserve the approximately uniform velocity throughout the slamming impact. Sandwich panels with different thicknesses i.e. 27mm and 37mm therefore, having different stiffness's were exposed under constant impact velocities of 6 and 8 m/s at the deadrise angle 10 degrees. Experimental results were then compared and verified by the numerical investigation based on explicit Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. This study focuses on the overall structural response, deformation, and hydrodynamic response of the structure during the dynamic impact designed for naval applications.