We are interested in this article in the modeling of the behavior of submerged structures and subjected to pressure waves. This issue is of particular interest to military shipbuilding when it comes to demonstrating the resistance of ships’ hulls and equipment to the effects of a distant underwater explosion.
This issue involves fluid/structure coupling phenomena that can be represented by means of different models, numerical or analytical, constituting a set of tools accessible to engineers.
This article offers an introduction to this problem, by presenting the main concepts, models and methods used to describe the pressure loading undergone by an immersed structure (hull of the ship for example) or the behavior of an onboard structure (equipment in the ship for example) in response to the movement imparted to the structure by this loading.
The presentation focuses in particular on methods for calculating the dynamic response of a structure to a shock (representing the effect of the explosion inside the ship); it details the possible representations of the shock (time or frequency domain) and the numerical approaches accessible to the engineer (time or spectral). This aspect of the problem is general and concerns other situations encountered in mechanical engineering, in the space sector, civil engineering, transport, etc. for example for holding structures to pyrotechnic or handling shocks, as well as to the effects of earthquakes or aerial explosions.
The reader will find these references in the “For more information” section associated with this article. An additional bibliography and links to websites offer useful resources to help them deepen their knowledge on the subject.
A table of acronyms and notations used is presented at the end of the article.