Experimental study on the gap entrance profile affecting rudder gap cavitation

The unsteady cavity patterns around the gap of the conventional and newly developed semi-spade rudders for marine ships are visualized qualitatively using a high-speed CCD camera. Time-resolved PIV analysis is also performed with the bubble tracers to study the flow behavior over the rudder surface. In addition, pressure measurements are conducted on the rudder surface and inside the gap to find out the flow characteristics around the gap entrance of the rudder. Both the rudders are tested without a propeller wake at the various cavitation numbers and at the rudder deflection angle of −8°⩽θ⩽10°. The strong cavitation patterns around the conventional rudder gap are significantly reduced by adopting a newly developed entrance profile, and a time-resolved velocity field is found to be very effective in catching the vortical cavity flow around the rudder gap. The stagnation point near the gap entrance of the conventional rudder can cause unsteady cavity flow. However, the developed rudder has very stable pressure distribution along the horn surface and decreases the pressure inside the gap because of the modification of the gap entrance. The pressure distribution around the gap of the suction side is closely related to the variation of the rudder deflection angle. The cavitation inception speed is delayed by about 4 knots in the angle range of −5°⩽θ⩽5° by employing the developed profile of the gap entrance.