Hydrofoils made of metal alloys were broadly used on high-speed boats in the past. Nowadays, much lighter hydrofoils made of composite materials are finding increasingly more applications on sailing yachts and powerboats. However, these hydrofoils are usually rather flexible, and their design requires computationally demanding analysis, involving hydroelastic calculations. In this study, exploratory high-fidelity simulations have been carried out for surface-piercing hydrofoils in unsteady conditions with help of a computational fluid dynamics solver for fluid flow coupled with a finite element solver for the foil structure. To model unsteady foil deformations, the morphing mesh approach was utilized, and the volume-of-fluid method was applied for multiphase flow simulations. The computational setup, as well as verification and validation study, is described in this paper. Three hydrofoils of different stiffness, including a perfectly rigid foil, were simulated in both calm water conditions and regular head waves. Representative examples of foil deflections and wave patterns, as well as time-dependent structural and hydrodynamic characteristics, are presented.
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