Research at the Experimental Hydrodynamics Laboratory

Free Surface Hydrodynamics

Water Entry by Spheres      Breaking Waves      Naval Ballistics

Modeling unsteady, hydrodynamic events near the free surface is critical to several hydrodynamic challenges faced in designing naval surface ships, defensive surface piercing ballistics systems and characterizing surface wake signatures. As the navy pursues faster surface crafts (50+ knots) and strives to defend against fast-moving, small boat threats and super-cavitating projectiles, the unsteady nature and kinematic scales exceed that which can be simulated by conventional computational efforts. The challenges of identifying the underlying physics across such a range of scales are equally impressive for both numerical and experimental approaches to these complex marine hydrodynamics problems.  In our research on these topics, we employ time-resolved, experimental flow diagnostic techniques, striving to incorporate our experimental data in a synergistic approach with numerical and theoretical modeling efforts, in order to develop accurate design tools for naval ballistics and high-speed surface ships.  The EHL research group focuses on two key challenges in free-surface naval hydrodynamics: the free surface impact by ballistic projectiles and the time-resolved, air-water measurements for unsteady surface waves.