The Wall Effect on Ventilated Cavitating Flows in Closed Cavitation Tunnels

For ventilated cavitating flows in a closed water tunnel, the wall effect may exert an important influence on cavity shape and hydrodynamics. An isotropic mixture multiphase model was established to study the wall effect based on the RANS equations, coupled with a natural cavitation model and the RNG κ-Σ turbulent model. The governing equations were discretized using the finite volume method and solved by the Gauss-Seidel linear equation solver on the basis of a segregation algorithm. The algebraic multigrid approach was carried through to accelerate the convergence of solution. The steady ventilated cavitating flows in water tunnels of different diameter were simulated for a conceptual underwater vehicle model which had a disk cavitator. It is found that the choked cavitation number derived is close to the approximate solution of natural cavitating flow for a 3-D disk. The critical ventilation rate falls with decreasing diameter of the water tunnel. However, the cavity size and drag coefficient are rising with the decrease in tunnel diameter for the same ventilation rate, and the cavity size will be much different in water tunnels of different diameter even for the same ventilated cavitation number.