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The varying speed impact of wedge bodies on a water surface is studied numerically and theoretically to provide a fast and accurate prediction of the pressure on the wedge surface and the motion of wedge bodies during the free impact, which can be a 2D model for the strip theory or 2D+t strategy. The fluid is assumed to be incompressible, inviscid, with negligible gravity effect and surface tension effect. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method and global moving mesh (GMM) method. Various cases of a varying speed impact are shown for the CFD method, and a linear relationship between the pressure coefficient Cp and a dimensionless variable K is observed. To clearly explain the linear relationship between Cp and K, we follow the potential theory to derive the Cp expression based on several assumptions on the free surface drawn from the CFD results. The Cp expression and the motion of wedge bodies for a free impact derived from it are considered as an approximate solution for a varying speed impact. The approximate solution is compared with the existing analytical models and the published experimental data. The approximate solution can work well for different deadrise angles, while the existing analytical models can only be used for small deadrise angles. Good agreement is also obtained between the approximate solution and the experimental test results, including the time history of wedge acceleration and the pressure on the wedge surface.

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The ditching processes of a blended-wing–body (BWB) aircraft under different initial speeds and pitch angles are simulated by numerically solving the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and the realizable [Formula: see text] turbulence model using the finite volume method. The volume-of-fluid model is adopted to capture the water–air interface. The six-degree-of-freedom model is employed to couple fluid dynamics and aircraft rigid-body kinematics. The global moving mesh is used to deal with the relative motion between the aircraft and the water. It is found that the plane composed of initial speed and pitch angle can be divided into two regions by a stability limit line, that is, the porpoising motion region (the aircraft takes coupled oscillatory motion between heaving and pitching) with large initial speeds and pitch angles and the stable motion region with low initial speeds and pitch angles. When the initial speed is large, the aircraft’s pitch-up moment peak and heaving amplitude are enhanced. Hence the aircraft carries out the porpoising motion. For the large initial pitch angle, the water entry depth of the aircraft increases and the waterline moves forward, which produces a more significant pitch-up moment peak and overload peak. As a result, the aircraft conducts the porpoising motion. The porpoising stability of the BWB configuration is obviously worse than the conventional and flying wing configurations. When the BWB aircraft ditches on water, the pilots should reduce the initial speed and pitch angle as much as possible to avoid the dangerous porpoising motion.