Vertical diffusion of bubbles injected beneath a flat-bottomed ship for frictional drag reduction

Abstract

There has been concern about the short effective distance of frictional drag reduction achieved by air lubrication, but recent model ship experiments have shown over 30 m longer than our expectation. Also, the reduction ratio can be improved through the artificial generation of void waves appearing beneath the hull. These topics relate to the spatiotemporal bubble distribution and an understanding of them requires clarification of the distribution. In this study, optical probes were used to measure the distributions of bubble states beneath a 20-m long flat-bottomed ship towed with 6–8 m/s. The measurements explained the long effective distance of drag reduction and the process of void wave generation and development. The drag reduction ratio was about 7–25% and mainly depended on the void fraction within 10 mm of the hull. The vertical distribution of the void fraction remained unchanged over long downstream distances. The development of void waves was affected by the streamwise velocity difference between bubble clusters near the hull. The velocity was determined by the number density of the bubbles, decreasing to the half of ship speed until reaching a certain number density, 100 per meter in our experiments, and then becoming constant at higher density.