An experimental study on water entry of asymmetric wedges

• Presenting a parametric study of 2D asymmetric entry of different wedges with different impact speeds and with the same important test configuration such as mass of the model and water level of the tank.
• Study the effects of initial deadrise angles and inclination angles of the wedges.
• Manufacturing an innovative high precision impacting model with adjustable deadrise angles in which the left and the right deadrise angles can be set independently. The apex line of the wedge is remained extremely sharp in all conditions.
• It is experimentally shown that the location of peak pressures varies for different deadrise angles.
• Showing the range where the asymmetric theories are unavailable.

The aim of the paper is to provide an experimental reference for investigation of asymmetric water entry of wedges. Parameters of the study include initial deadrise angle, inclination angle and impact speed. Initial deadrise angles of the wedges were 20° and 30° with inclination angles ranging from 0° to 15° in 5° increments. Wedges were freely fallen from three different heights. Time histories of impact pressure and body acceleration were recorded. Sampling rate of measurements were set to 25 KHz. Main configuration of each test including mass of the wedge and water level were kept unchanged during all experiments. Additionally, several calibration tests were conducted to assess the repeatability and accuracy of the recorded data. The experimental results are compared with different entry theories and other available experiments. The comparison shows a reasonable agreement and indicates that the inclination angle can dramatically affect the impact pressure experienced by the wedges. Finally, the results show that the traditional asymmetric theories are not appropriate for all inclination angles.