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Induced air pressure and resulting free surface profile due to air cushioning layer is studied. The study is mainly focused on 2D blunt circular bodies with constant downward speed. The problem is first solved for the air flow between the body and the free surface of the water. Then the results are employed to solve the problem for the water problem, numerically. Both air and water problem are assumed to be governed by Laplace potential equation. Depending on the induced pressure and velocity of the escaping air flow from cushioning layer, compressibility of the air is also included in the modeling. Gravitational acceleration is also included in the model. An iterative boundary element method is used for numerical solution of both air and water problems. Instantaneous pressure distribution and free surface profile are evaluated for different bodies. The results of calculation for large blunt bodies show that inviscid potential method can fairly approximate the problem for large blunt bodies. Additionally, the behavior of the air pressure for the very blunt body is impulsive and the magnitude of the peak pressure is in order of impact pressure of water entry. The obtained results are compared with analytical method. The comparison shows that as the bluntness of a body increases, the better agreement is concluded.

Effect of air cushion layer right before impact of a rigid body onto water surface has been investigated in this paper. The study is mainly focused on evaluation of cushioning pressure and the resulting free surface elevation. The air flow is assumed to be an irrotational flow which is governed by Laplace equation. The air problem and the resulting response of the water free surface are supposed to be weakly coupled because of very low air pressure. Integral equation for each medium has been numerically solved separately using boundary element method. The problem is assumed to be unsteady with a constant body speed. The numerical results have been also compared with analytical method which shows a fair agreement. Results show that the geometry of impacting body and particularly its bluntness are the primary affecting parameter which can dramatically influence the free surface profile and air pressure. Such a behavior has been observed for two different geometries, ellipse and wedge section, having identical breadth.

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