Numerical investigation of blockage effect for natural supercavitation

The aim of supercavitation technology is to minimize the wetted surfaces and reduce the viscous drag forces on the body. In this paper, the phenomenon of natural supercavitation is introduced and the characteristic parameters of this phenomenon are determined. Specific parameters of the supercavitation phenomenon are obtained in terms of drag coefficient, dimensionless cavity length, and cavity diameter from the experimental database. The purpose of gathering the experimental databases is to develop a numerical analyses method that solve supercavitating flows. After validation study is evaluated, a verification study is conducted for two different cavitation numbers. Moreover, the relationship between blockage effect and supercavitation parameters are investigated. The compression effect onto pressure distribution and velocity vectors are evaluated for 16 different blockage ratios at 3 different cavitation numbers via numerical analyses. The percentage differences of the cavity length, diameter and drag coefficient values are revealed based on the blockage ratio.