Re-Entrant Jet Modeling of Partial Cavity Flow on Three-Dimensional Hydrofoils

Abstract

A potential-based lower-order surface panel method is developed to calculate the flow around a three-dimensional hydrofoil with an attached sheet cavity the leading edge. A Dirichlet type dynamic boundary condition on the cavity surface and a Neumann boundary condition on the wetted surface are enforced. The cavity shape is initially assumed and the kinematic boundary condition on the cavity surface is satisfied by iterating the cavity length and shape. Upon convergence, both the dynamic boundary condition and the kinematic boundary condition on the cavity surface are satisfied, and a re-entrant jet develops at the cavity closure. The flow at the closure of the cavity and the mechanism of the re-entrant jet formation is investigated. Good agreement is found between the calculated results and MIT’s experiments on a 3-D hydrofoil.