Studio sperimentale e numerico sui parametri di progetto di una tavola da Wakeboard

The objective of this work is to understand the failure mechanism and evaluate the maximum hydroelastic loads during the slamming phenomena of a Wakeboard with the water surface, in order to provide an engineering basis for the design process. Wakeboards are built as a sandwich structure, with polyurethane foam and E-Glass fiber/Epoxy reinforcements. Several specimens were extracted from real boards and tested in three point bending to investigate the structural properties and the major failure mechanisms. These data are later used in a parametric full-scale numerical model investigation of the water-entry event. The numerical simulations consist in coupled Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) for the fluid domain and FEM model for the boards’ structure. The obtained results are of the major interest for the design considerations.