SPH simulations of water entry problems using an improved boundary treatment

Abstract Water entry problem is common in ocean engineering, including complex fluid–structure interaction (FSI) phenomena at the interfaces. As a Lagrangian and mesh-free particle method, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method owns great advantages in dealing with FSI problems. However, solid boundary treatment has always been one of the main issues affecting the accuracy of the SPH method. Through combining the dummy particle boundary and the normal flux method, an improved solid boundary treatment technology is proposed in this paper. After fully validated by a series of 2D and 3D water entry cases, the boundary treatment method is applied to simulate the water entry of a lifeboat. The results indicate that the SPH model in this paper can provide a reliable numerical prediction for water entry problems with 3D complex geometries.