Numerical investigation of the gravity effect on the shape of natural supercavity

The objective of this paper is to investigate the gravity effect on the shape characters of natural supercavity. A finite difference solver along with an implicit, dual time, preconditioned, three-dimensional algorithm has been used to solve the two-phase Navier Stokes equations. Numerical solutions were performed for natural supercavitating flow past a disk for different cavitation and Froud numbers. The numerical results were compared with corresponding analytical results in quantitative manner and it was found that the shape of supercavity was reasonably predicted Numerical results indicated that the gravity effect can induce the asymmetry of supercavity. The asymmetry was apparent when the froud number was smaller so that for constant cavitation number when we reduced the froud number the opt of the axis of supercavity increased. Moreover, for specific froud number a decrease in cavitation number resulted in an increase in the offset of the supercavity Numerical results revealed that for froud number greater than 25 the gravity effect is negligible.