Capability of Potential Flow Theory for Modeling Planar Symmetric and Axisymmetric Supercavitating Flow

Present paper's main aim is investigating the capability of potential flow theory for modeling supercavitating flow. Based on this theory, a numerical algorithm for capturing cavity boundary in two and three dimensional symmetric and axisymmetric flow is introduced. This numerical scheme is capable of capturing a supercavity's boundary in vast range of cavitation numbers with high accuracy. Like the other similar studies on supercavitating flow employing ideal flow theory, the length of the cavity is supposed to be known and the related cavitation number and cavity profile are the output of this scheme; but, the most novel distinctions between this study and other similar works is the numerical scheme employed for updating the cavity's boundary and the closure model which is applied for closing the cavity in down stream of the flow. After presentation of the numerical algorithm for both symmetric and axisymmetric flow, a comprehensive comparison between this scheme's results and the other similar numerical modeling of 2D symmetric and axisymmetric cavitating flow is accomplished. Juxtaposition of the obtained results and comparing them with experimental data indicates that there is a basic difference between essence of results accuracy in 2D and 3D cavitating flow modeling using ideal flow theory. Finally it was concluded that, although the 2D symmetric and axisymmetric cavitating flow have basic differences with each other but some relations and similarities could be observed in these flows.