Modelling and Simulation of High Speed Supercavitating Vehicle

Supercavitation is an emerging technology in which the most cursed ‘Cavitation’ is used as a beneficial to engineering application. Supercavitation is achieved when a body moves through water at sufficiently high speed, so that the fluid pressure drops to the water vapour pressure and a vapour bubble (called cavity) envelops the entire vehicle (except the cavitator and fins). Hence, the skin friction drag of the vehicle becomes almost zero. Hence, vehicle can move in the two phase medium.The development of supercavitating vehicle has been confronted with various challenging problems such as the potential instability of the vehicle, the unsteady nature of the cavity dynamics and the complex, non-linear and time delayed nature of the interaction between vehicle and cavity. Moreover depending upon some non dimensional parameter e.g. cavitation number (σ), the equilibrium of the vehicle may shift from a stable equilibrium to a limit cycle.