Impact on a water filled cylinder

Abstract

The computational and experimental results of impact loading a water filled cylinder with a high speed piston are presented. Computational simulation of the impact process is performed by means of DIANA, a commercial finite element software package. In this simulation, water is modeled as a solid with very small shear modulus compared to the bulk modulus of water. The efficiency of the simulated impact is evaluated by the time dependent water pressure in the vicinity of the cylinder. Also, the shock pressure resulting from impact is detected by using a pressure transducer located in the middle of the water tube. Comparison of the computational and experimental results shows that the impact process on a water filled cylinder is well modeled. It is shown that the best way to increase the pressure peaks of the pressure profile curve is to increase the piston’s impact velocity.