Airframe water impact analysis

Abstract

The paper focuses on the application of various simulation techniques to analyse the behaviour of structures during water impact: the Finite Element Method using the explicit code PAM-CRASH, the Hybrid approach using DRI-KRASH and the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Method in PAM-SHOCK. In the first section, a material model for water is calibrated in PAM-CRASH by vaious simulations with simple body shapes. Then, after a description of the modelling of the water/structure interactions in DRI-KRASH, the principal of local/global methodology combining the explicit code PAM-CRASH and the hybrid code DRI-KRASH is presented and its applicability demonstrated on the fuselage structure of an aircraft. Finally, the last section of this paper is devoted to the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method and its promising application to the problems of impact on water.