• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.82-85
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• 2008

When a projectile travels at high speed underwater, supercavitating flowarises, in which a huge cavity is generated behind the projectile so that only the nose, i.e., the cavitator, of the projectile is wetted, while the rest of it should be surrounded by the cavity. In that case, the projectile can achieve very high speed due to the reduced drag. Furthermore if the nose of the body is shaped properly, the attendant pressure drag can be maintained at a very low value, so that the overall drag is also reduced dramatically. In this study, shape optimization technique is employed to determine the optimum cavitator shape for minimum drag, given certain operating conditions. Simultaneous optimization technique is proposed for efficient cavitator shape optimization, in which the cavity and cavitator shape are determined in a single optimization routine.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.188-192
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• 2009

A massive cavity is generated behind the underwater vehicles, such as marine propellers, pump impellers, nozzles, injectors, torpedoes, etc. when a underwater vehicle moves at very high speed in the underwater. At this point it makes supercavitating flow and the nose, ie., the cavitator is very important fator at the vehicle since it should be surrounded by the cavity. The present work has focused on the simulation of cavitation flow using the new cavitator. The governing equation is the Navier-Stokes equation based on homogeneous mixture model. For the code validation, the results from the present solver have been compared with experiments and other numerical results. A fairly good agreement with the experimental data and other numerical results have been obtained.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.1876-1881
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• 2003

When a projectile travels at high speed underwater, supercavitating flow arises, in which a huge cavity is generated behind the projectile so that only the nose, i.e., the cavitator, of the projectile is wetted, while the rest of it should be surrounded by the cavity. In that case, the projectile can achieve very high speed due to the reduced drag. Furthermore if the nose of the body is shaped properly, the attendant pressure drag can be maintained at a very low value, so that the overall drag is also reduced dramatically. In this study, shape optimization technique is employed to determine the optimum cavitator shape for minimum drag, given certain operating conditions. Shape optimization technique is also used to solve the potential flow problem for any given cavitator, which is a free boundary value problem having the cavity shape as unknown a priori. Analytical sensitivities are derived for various shape parameters in order to implement a gradient-based optimization algorithm. Simultaneous optimization technique is proposed for efficient cavitator shape optimization, in which the cavity and cavitator shape are determined in a single optimization routine.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.665-672
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• 2017

Supercavitation can be generated at relatively lower speeds by injecting compressed air behind the cavitator. As a result, an artificially created supercavity is deformed and its tail tends to rise due to gravitational effects. However, practical prediction of the artificial supercavity currently depends on empirical results. In this study, a mathematical model for the artificial supercavity under the gravity effect is proposed. Based on a boundary element method, geometric characteristics of the supercavity at different flow conditions are examined. The results were compared with an existing empirical formula and also experimental observations carried out at a cavitation tunnel of the Chungnam National University.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.300-308
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• 2015

Recently supercavitating underwater torpedo moving at high speed (over 200 knots) has been interested for their practical advantage of the dramatic drag reduction. Cavitator located in front of the torpedo plays an important role to generate a natural supercavity and control the motion of the object. Supercavity can be created artificially by injection of compressed gas from the rear of the cavitator at a relatively low speed. In this paper, we investigated physical characteristics of artificial supercavities through cavitation tunnel experiments. One of the main focuses of the study was to measure pressure inside the cavity, and examined variation of the gravity effects appearing according to different amount of injected air. It was also found that a stable supercavity could be sustained at injection rates less than that required to form the stable supercavity because of hysteresis effect.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.10
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• pp.1566-1573
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• 2004

When a projectile travels at high speed underwater, supercavitating flow arises, in which a huge cavity is generated behind the projectile so that only the nose, i.e., the cavitator, of the projectile is wetted, while the rest of it should be surrounded by the cavity. In that case, the projectile can achieve very high speed due to the reduced drag. Furthermore if the nose of the body is shaped properly, the attendant pressure drag can be maintained at a very low value, so that the overall drag is also reduced dramatically. In this study, shape optimization technique is employed to determine the optimum cavitator shape for minimum drag, given certain operating conditions. Shape optimization technique is also used to solve the potential flow problem fur any given cavitator, which is a free boundary value problem having the cavity shape as unknown a priori. Analytical sensitivities are derived for various shape parameters in order to implement a gradient-based optimization algorithm. Simultaneous optimization technique is proposed for efficient cavitator shape optimization, in which the cavity and cavitator shape are determined in a single optimization routine.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.305-314
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• 2015

In this paper, a numerical analysis is carried out to study the drag of conical cavitators, supercavity generation devices for the high-speed underwater vehicle. The realizable k-∊ turbulence model and the Schnerr-Sauer cavitation model are applied to calculate steady-state supercavitating flows around cones of various cone angles. The calculated drags of the cones are decomposed of the pressure and the friction parts and their dependency on the geometry and the flow conditions have been analyzed. It is confirmed that the pressure drag coefficients of the cones can be estimated by a simple function of both the cone angle and the cavitation number while the friction drag coefficients approximately by well-known empirical formulas, e.g., Schults-Grunow's for the drag of the flat plate. Finally a practical method for estimating the total drags of supercavitating cones is suggested, which can be useful consequently for the design of conical cavitaors.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.160-166
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• 2013

Recently submerged objects moving at high speed such as a supercavitating torpedo have been studied for their practical advantage of the dramatic drag reduction. In this study, we are focusing our attention on supercavitating flows around axisymmetric cavitators; a numerical method based on inviscid flow is developed and predicted supercavities around several shapes of 2D and 3D cavitators are presented. The results are validated by comparison of existing theoretical and empirical results. In addition, characteristic features of supercavity shapes and drag forces acting on a real scale torpedo are evaluated according to practically appropriate operating conditions.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

A cavitator plays an important role to generate the supercavity. Most previous numerical and experimental studies have been focused on the presence of cavitators alone. However, the body behind the cavitator causes a change in the wake flow and hence it affects generation and growth of the supercavity. In this paper, we present a boundary elementary method based on a potential flow analysis, and calculate characteristics of the supercavity formation depending on the change of the body shape of two-dimensional submerged objects. Various parameters such as cone angle of the cavitator, length of the forehead and diameter of the body are considered. The results show that the longer the forepart length, the longer the cavity is created under the same conditions, and also the change in the diameter of the body is the most influential factor on the growth of the supercavity. As a result, we suggest that it is necessary to carefully consider the influence of the body shape during the initial design stage of the supercavitating underwater vehicle.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.443-449
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• 2010

Recently underwater systems moving at hyper-speed such as a super-cavitating torpedo have been studied for their practical advantage of the dramatic drag reduction. In this study we are focusing our attention on super-cavitating flows around axisymmetric cavitators. A numerical method based on inviscid flow is developed and the results for several shapes of the cavitator are presented. First using a potential based boundary element method, we find the shape of the cavitator yielding a sufficiently large enough cavity to surround the body. Second, numerical predictions of super-cavity are validated by comparing with experimental observations carried out in a high speed cavitation tunnel at Chungnam National University (CNU CT).