Numerical Investigation on the Ventilated Supercavity around a Body under Free Surface Effect

Abstract

Reducing vessel resistance by using ventilated cavities has been a highly researched topic in the marine industry. There is limited literature on ventilated supercavities near the free surface, which indicates that their dynamic behavior is more complex than conventional ventilated cavities due to the effect of the free surface. This paper employs numerical simulations to study the dynamic behavior of the ventilated supercavity, taking into account the effect of the free surface. Numerical simulations can predict gas leakage behaviors, cavity geometry, and internal flow structures. The influence of the free surface shortens the length of the ventilated cavity and increases the diameter. The presence of the free surface mainly changes the vertical velocity distribution between the free surface and the cavity. The results show that there are two typical gas leakage mechanisms under different immersion depths: twin-vortex tube leakage mode and re-entrant jet leakage mode. The internal flow field of ventilated supercavity is classified into three regions: the internal boundary layer, the ventilation influence region, and the reverse flow region. As the distance between the free surface and the ventilated supercavity decreases, the ventilated supercavity is affected by both the free surface effect and the gravity effect.