Large eddy simulation of the cavity shedding characteristics of ventilated cavitation around the underwater vehicle

Abstract

Ventilated cavitation is utilized for reducing drag and improving the headway of underwater vehicles. The ventilated cavitating flow around the axisymmetric body is simulated using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) method in this study. Three cavity morphologies with different ventilation rates (Cq) are observed: Foamy Cavity (FC), Continuous Transparent and Foamy Cavity (CTFC) and Super Cavity (SC). The cavity shedding characteristic of the three different cavity morphologies is revealed. For partial cavity, the periodic cavity shedding is dominated by the local high pressure, re-entrant jet and vortex. The distributions of the turbulent kinetic energy and the pulsation enstrophy exhibit different migration mechanisms during the cavity shedding. The energy characteristic is reflected by three terms of the entropy generation. And the entropy production rate by direct dissipation occupies a dominant position, accounting for about 80% of the total entropy production, while the entropy production rate by viscous dissipation only accounts for 4%. For super cavity, gas leakage is dominated by a re-entrant jet induced by the intense adverse pressure gradient. And the results also demonstrated the velocity and vorticity pulsations around the test body wrapped in a super cavity are not intense.