Hydor-impact, fluid-structure interaction and structural response of modern racing yacht

Abstract

In recent years, faster, lighter and bigger are the key issues in a modern racing yacht
for extreme performance. As a result, many yachts have experienced various structural
failures caused by the hydrodynamic impact or ’hydro-impact’ phenomenon by
slamming.

The structural failure by hydro-impact originates from the facts that the external
hydro-impact load and fluid structure interaction effect is somewhat misled and when
applying the load into current structural design, the ’dynamic’ load is typically, manipulated
in a ’static’ way with fluid structure interaction effect, generally, ignored.
In this thesis, the hydro-impact load by slamming, its fluid structure interaction effect
and dynamic response of the local structure of the yacht are studied.

Firstly, to acquire insight into the hydro-impact phenomenon, a series of drop tests
and seakeeping-slamming tests are carried out with various sensing instruments of
pressure transducers, accelerometer and ’slam patch system’ - a specific application
form of generally known pressure panel - are installed. The slam patch system is
designed and implemented to investigate the hydro-impact loads and fluid structure
interaction effect of slamming. Afterward, the measured hydro-impact loads are summarised
via statistical manipulations with regard to pressure and duration time.

Secondly, impact pressure by the rules and regulations of various organisations are
provided to compare it with the experimental results and structural response calculations.
The applicability of the rules and regulations on the high performance racing
yacht is also pointed out.

Finally, the manipulated loads are used as input data to simulate the transient
response of local structure of the yacht structure.
Throughout this study, the dynamic and fluid structure interaction effect by hydroimpact
phenomenon on local composite structure can be easily visualised and calculated
in a conservative way through conventional finite element analysis work.

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