Computational investigation on ventilated supercavitating flows and its hydrodynamic characteristics around a high-speed underwater vehicle

Abstract

Notwithstanding the effectiveness of ventilated cavitation as a safe way to accelerate and achieve natural supercavitation, detailed physics of ventilated cavitating flows and hydrodynamic effects on underwater vehicles have been rarely explored. The present work deals with computational investigation on ventilated supercavitating flows around a high-speed underwater vehicle and its hydrodynamic characteristics. The homogeneous mixture model is adopted for describing the cavitating flow field composed of water, water vapor, and a ventilated gas. After extensively validating the flow solver with experiments of ventilated cavitating flows, we carry out a series of computations of supercavitating flows around a high-speed underwater vehicle with four control fins, and investigate the flow physics and the vehicle’s hydrodynamic characteristics. The computations are performed under different freestream velocities, ventilation rates, and angles of attack. Furthermore, the unsteady effects of turbulence are examined by comparing the computed results based on unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulation and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES).The computational results show that the cavitating flows cause substantial nonlinear characteristics in cavity shapes and hydrodynamic forces such as lift, drag, and pitching moment, due to the presence of natural and ventilated cavitations and their interaction. This can be beneficially exploited in understanding and predicting ventilated supercavitating flows around a high-speed underwater vehicle, and establishing an accurate dynamic model of the vehicle’s motion.