The impact of flexible rectangular aluminum plates on a quiescent water surface is studied experimentally. The plates are mounted via pinned supports at the leading and trailing edges to an instrument carriage that drives the plates at constant velocity and various angles relative to horizontal into the water surface. Time-resolved measurements of the hydrodynamic normal force ($F_n$) and transverse moment ($M_{to}$), the spray root position ($\xi _r$) and the plate deflection ($\delta$) are collected during plate impacts at 25 experimental conditions for each plate. These conditions comprise a matrix of impact Froude numbers ${Fr} = V_n(gL)^{-0.5}$, plate stiffness ratios $R_D= \rho _w V_n^2 L^3D^{-1}$ and submergence time ratios $R_T= T_sT_{1w}^{-1}$. It is found that $R_D$ is the primary dimensionless ratio controlling the role of flexibility during the impact. At conditions with low $R_D$, maximum plate deflections on the order of $1$ mm occur and the records of the dimensionless form of $F_n$, $M_{to}$, $\xi _r$ and $\delta _c$ are nearly identical when plotted vs $tT_s^{-1}$. In these cases, the impact occurs over time scales substantially greater than the plate's natural period, and a quasi-static response ensues with the maximum deflection occurring approximately midway through the impact. For conditions with higher $R_D$ ($\gtrsim 1.0$), the above-mentioned dimensionless quantities depend strongly on $R_D$. These response features indicate a dynamic plate response and a two-way fluid–structure interaction in which the deformation of the plate causes significant changes in the hydrodynamic force and moment.

The transport of heavy, polydispersed particles and the inter-phase transfer of kinetic energy due to the viscous drag forces is measured experimentally in a turbulent shear layer. To study the effect of the large-scale vortex pairing event, the shear layer is forced simultaneously with a fundarmental and subharmonic perturbation. It is shown that vortex pairing plays a homogenizing role on the particulate field, but hte amount of homogenization is strongly dependent upon the particle's viscous relaxtion time, the eddy turnover time, as well as the time the particles interact with each scale prior to a pairing event. Thus, even though the smaller size particles become well-mixed across the large eddies, the larger sizes are still dispersed in an inhormogeneous fashion. It is also found that the kinetic energy transfer between the phases occurs inhomogeneously with energy being exchanged predominantly in a sublayer just outside the region of maximum turbulence intensity. The kinetic energy transfer is shown to exhibit notable positive and negative peaks located beneath the cores and stagnation points of the large-scale eddy field, and these peaks are shown to result from the irrotational velocity perturbations created by the vortices. This energy exchange mechanism remains a prominent process as long as the Stokes number of the particles relative to the vortices is of order unity.