Experimental Study on Impact Loads Acting on Free-falling Modified Wigley

The characteristics of an impact load and pressure were experimentally investigated. Drop tests were carried out using a modified Wigley with CB = 0.56. The vertical force, pressures, and vertical accelerations were measured. A 6-component load cell was used to measure the forces, piezo-electric sensors were used to capture the impact pressure, and strain-gauge type accelerometers were used to measure the vertical accelerations. A 50-kHz sampling rate was applied to capture the peak values. The repeatability of the measured data was confirmed and the basic characteristics of the impact load and pressure such as the linearity to the falling height were observed for all of the measurements. A simple formula was derived to extract the physical impact load from the measured force based on a simple mass-sensor-mass diagram, which was validated by comparing impact forces with existing data using the mathematical model of Faltinsen and Chezhian (2005). The effects of the elasticity of the model and change in acceleration during the water entry were investigated. It is interesting to observe that the impact loads occurred and reached peak values at the same time duration after water entry for all drop heights.