Numerical simulation of underwater explosions using an ALE method. The pulsating bubble phenomena

The paper deals with numerical methodology to model and study the bubble dynamics produced by an underwater explosion when it occurs in infinite medium, i.e. no interaction with any surrounding obstacle as the free surface, the seabed or deformable structures (surface ship or submarine). Numerical simulation of this class of problems requires large mesh domain and long time scale. In order to reduce the computing time we use the bi-dimensional axisymmetric Multi-Material Arbitrary Lagrange Euler formulation developed by the authors. Comparisons with empirical and theoretical formula are performed in order to corroborate the numerical results. Particularly, the spatial convergence, the influence of the domain size and the boundary conditions are studied in order to propose a consistent methodology with the explosion bubble phenomena.

► Study of gaseous bubble hydrodynamics from underwater explosions.
► Development of the Arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian Multi-Material method.
► The spatial convergence and boundary conditions effects are analyzed.
► The capability of the method to reproduce the essential bubble dynamics is shown.
► Large spatial domains and long time scales can be handled by the numerical method.