Nonlinear calculation of arbitrarily shaped supercavitating hydrofoils near a free surface

Abstract

A nonlinear exact solution to the problem of two-dimensional gravity-free incompressible potential flow around an arbitrarily shaped supercavitating hydrofoil near a free surface is obtained. A combination of Newton’s method with a functional iterative procedure is used to solve the nonlinear integral and algebraic equations of this problem. Fast and stable convergence results by starting the iteration with a readily chosen initial solution. Some representative numerical computations are made for practical hydrofoils having both generally shaped camber and leading-edge thickness distributions. The force coefficients, pressure distribution and free-streamline shapes of the cavity are calculated for each case with an execution time on an IBM 370-158 of 200-530s depending upon the initial trial solution.