Impact Force Mechanism of a Trimaran Model and Its Experimental Validation

In recent years, trimarans have been used in high-speed transport and in warships, but studies of them have made little progress. We designed a trimaran model and used it to perform a water-entry experiment to find a way to reduce the slamming pressure. The process of the model entering the water was divided into several steps, and different theoretical models were designed for each step, together with their force analysis. Relying on our experimental platform, we designed three flexible coating thicknesses and six drop heights as the different working conditions. With an analysis of the results under these experimental conditions, the experiment clearly indicates that the flexible cladding on the model can decrease the impact force when the model slams into water. Furthermore, the theoretical models and their corresponding force analyses are validated by the experimental results.