Numerical Study of Free Surface Effect on Supercavitating Flows

In this paper, we focus on applying the volume of fluid (VOF) method coupled with an interface reconstruction technique to capture the free surface between liquid and gas. The governing equation is the compressible Navier-Stokes equations based on the homogeneous mixture model. A preconditioned method is applied for enhancing efficient and accurate computations over a wide range of Mach numbers. For evaluation, the present results have been compared with experiments and other numerical results. A fairly good agreement with the experimental data and other numerical results has been obtained. Finally, the simulation of natural supercavitating flows over a plate hydrofoil was conducted to show the effect of free surface on characteristic length of supercavitation.