Determination of pressure distribution on composite Trimarans during water entry

Impulsive loads, which occur during impact between high-speed craft’s hull and water surface, are assumed as a main parameters in structural design of such vessels. This phenomenon, which called “Slamming”, occurs when the bottom of vessel hits the waves strongly. Slamming may lead to structural damages and it is dangerous for crew and equipments. Slamming should be considered for structural design and prediction of motion in design phase for marine vehicles but it has more importance for multi-hull crafts such as Catamarans and Trimarans because of damages for cross structures, which connect the hulls. Many researchers studied about water entry problem through experimental tests, analytical and numerical methods but the problem is challenging for multi-hull crafts yet. In current research, numerical analysis of impact for a composite trimaran vessel had done and the results of peak pressure compared to experimental data for validation. In the next phase, the structure was analyzed under these two obtained pressures and the deflection was compared. The results can be useful as guideline and reliable way for determination of effective loads on these vessels in early stage design phase.