Computational investigation of ventilated cavity flow over a 2-D fence

Ventilated supercavitating flow over a 2-D wall mounted fence is numerically investigated using a viscous approach. Flow was simulated using an implicit unsteady compressible solver with a RANS k-ω SST turbulence model and VOF approach for cavity interface tracking. All simulations were carried out for a fixed fence height based Reynolds number of 50,000. The effect of ventilation rate on the flow characteristics is investigated. The effects of the wall boundary layer were examined by comparing results with inviscid potential flow from a boundary element method. The relationship between ventilation rate and the lift and drag resulting from the respective wall and fence pressure distributions is determined. It was found that, lift increases and drag decreases with increasing ventilation rate thus increasing hydrodynamic efficiency. These numerical results will be compared with future experimental investigations to be performed in a cavitation tunnel