Computational Treatments of Cavitation Effects in Near-Free-Surface Underwater Shock Analysis. (2001)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sprague, Michael A.; Geers, Thomas L.
• Is Part Of: Shock and vibration. Volume 2001(2001)
• Page Start: 105
• Page End: 122
• Publication Date: 2001
• Subjects: cavitation -- underwater shock -- fluid-structure interaction; Shock (Mechanics) -- Periodicals; Vibration -- Periodicals; 534.5
• DOI: 10.1155/2001/853074
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1070-9622

Abstract

Abstract : Fluid cavitation constitutes an expensive computational nuisance in underwater-shock response calculations for structures at or just below the free surface. In order to avoid the use of a large array of cavitating acoustic finite elements (CAFE), various wet-surface approximations have been proposed. This paper examines the performance of two such approximations by comparing results produced by them for 1-D canonical problems with corresponding results produced by more rigorous CAFE computations. It is found that the fundamental limitation of wet-surface approximations is their inability to capture fluid-accretion effects. As an alternative, truncated CAFE fluid meshes with plane-wave radiation boundaries are shown to give good results. In fact, a single layer of CAFE is found to be comparable in accuracy to the better of the wet-surface approximations. The paper concludes with an examination of variations in CAFE modeling.