Cavity flow past a slender pointed hydrofoil

Abstract

A slender-body theory for the flow past a slender, pointed hydrofoil held at a small angle of Attack to the flow, with a cavity on the upper surface, has been worked out. The approximate solution valid near the body is seen to be the sum of two components. The first consists of a distribution of two-dimensional sources located along the centroid line of the cavity to represent the variation of the cross-sectional area of the cavity. The second component represents the crossflow perpendicular to the centroid line. It is found that over the cavity boundary which envelops a constant pressure region, the magnitude of the cross-flow velocity is not constant, but varies to a moderate extent. With this variation neglected only in the neighbourhood of the hydrofoil, the cross-flow is solved by adopting the Riabouchinsky model for the two-dimensional flow. The lift is then calculated by integrating the pressure along the chord; the dependence of the lift on cavitation number and angle of attack is shown for a specific case of the triangular plan form.