A numerical investigation of liquid impact on planar surfaces

The impact of a free surface liquid flow on planar surfaces is a common occurrence and a challenging issue in many research fields. There are many situations in science and technology where this field of study finds related applications: the falling objects on a liquid surface, sloshing dynamics, flow run-up and overtopping, the action of train waves on maritime structures. Under certain circumstances, the impact process may result into high, spatially localized pressure peaks, thus inducing dangerous solicitations. The present work focuses on some relevant computational aspects of the fluid impact on inclined planar surfaces, making use of the Weakly Compressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (WCSPH) Lagrangian technique. With reference to the early stages of the impact process, pressure distribution is described as function of the incident wave's features and the angle of incidence of the solid surface assumed. Results are then discussed and compared with the corresponding ones obtained via Eulerian software.