Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), as the primary type of underwater unmanned detectors, play a vital role in marine resource exploration and development. Before their operations, AUVs must undergo a deployment phase. Current surface deployment methods primarily include crane-based release or slide-based release from a mother ship and airborne deployment. During the process, the AUV structure is subjected to strongly nonlinear slamming problem when entering the water, posing significant challenges to structural safety. For the study of such slamming issues, experimental testing is the most reliable research method. This paper is based on the structure of medium and small AUVs, designs a rotational body test model with three-dimensional curved surface characteristics and a novel free fall slamming testing apparatus. Experimental investigations on slamming load characteristics are carried out, enabling the rotational body model to enter water under varying vertical and horizontal velocities as well as different entry angles. By analysing the data from different measurement points, the load variation patterns are studied, providing reference basis for the research on the load characteristics of the rotational body structure during the deployment and water entry process.
Cai et al. (Sun,) studied this question.