Impact Loading on Marine Panels: Modeling the Effect of Water Backing

The design of naval, aeronautical, and offshore structures considerably relies on fluid-structure interaction models than can accurately predict dynamic response. Here, we propose a modeling framework to elucidate the role of water-backing on the impact response of marine panels. The panel dynamics is described using nonlinear Euler-Bernoulli beam theory incorporating von Kármán nonlinearity. Potential flow theory is used to model the fluid flow, and a closed-form solution is established for the hydrodynamic pressure as a function of the panel acceleration. Galerkin discretization method is implemented to cast the problem into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, which are solved using polynomial set of basis functions. We specialize results to vinyl ester resins panels and a parametric study is conducted to investigate the role of panel thickness.