SUPERCAVITATION PHENOMENON

AND ITS APPLICATIONS

Submitted To:
Prof. G. Agrawal
Dr. G D Agarwal
Dr. Gunjan Soni

Submitted By :
Akshaya Khinchi
2011UME1489

CONTENTS
Introduction
Necessity of supercavitation
Generation of supercavitation
Advantages Of Supercavitations
Applications
Challenges.

Necessity of the Supercavitation

Skin friction (water) = 20000 skin friction (air)

92 km/hr

170 km/hr

CAVITATION
Cavitation is the formation of vapour cavities
in a liquid i.e. small liquid-free zones

Supercavitation Phonomenon
Supercavitation is an extreme version of cavitation
in which a single bubble is formed that envelops
the moving object almost completely. At velocities

Basic theory of the Supercavitation

-In the Supercavitation the envelope around the
propelled body is made which further serves
very less amount of the skin friction.
-The fluid which is there around the surface
could be set aside by generating the vapours
by ventilation or by some other means

Method to generate the

Supercavitation
There are two methods to generate
Supercavitation
Vaporous cavitation
ventilation

Vaporous cavitation
Unlike conventional noses, a supercavitating body
has a rather blunt nose. Water is forced to flow
off the edge of the nose at such an angle that it
cannot wrap around the surface of the bodya
bubble of air starts to form around the object...
This extends to cover the entire projectile
In order to withstand such high stresses nose
must be made of materials hard as well as light
weight. Light weight materials like carbon
composites in honey comb structure can be used.

Profile of the Supercavitation over a

cylinderical surface

Ventilation
A cavitator
initiates the
bubble formation.
The exhaust of
rocket engine
stabilize this
envelope and also
help attaining very
high speed
Since skin drag is
very less speed
attained are in
supersonic range.

Cavitation Number
P = Hydrostatic pressure of ambient liquid
Pv = Vapour pressure
L = Length of body
V0 = Initial velocity
g = Acc due to gravity
= Cavitation number
= Surface Tension Coefficient

Advantages
Greatly reduce skin friction.
Reduction of water adhesion to the surface or
slippage thus transition from air to water is
possible.
Using it submarines can be made invisible to
sonar by making aucoustic field.

Applications
The main is under-water propulsion system :

Torpedoes
Antiship mines
Submarines
Ship propeller

TORPEDOES
Supercavitation
has made
torpedoes to run
at supersonic
speeds.
Currently the
speed of VA-111
Shkval is 435
km/hr.

Basic Torpedo Design

Cavitator
Rocket engine
Fuel tank
Exhaust manifod
Guidance fins
Mechatronic system

Antiship Mines
It is the cost effective way
to destroy the anti ship
mines.
Non ballastic missiles can
be fired from air to water
Currently two methods
are used to destroy mines
(a) RAMICS weapon fired from
helicopter
(b) AHSUM weapon fired from
sea surface.

Submarines
Submarines with
speed as high as 10
mach are in
designing phase
Li Fengchen, Harbin
Institute of
Technology, China
has claimed for
developing a
submarine running
at 5800 km/hr.

Passanger Carrier
This technology can be used in ships and other
marine transportation.
This will certainly help reducing loads on air
transport .

Challenges

While moving for

Supercavitation we are
supposed to control the
electronic control system
with a very small response
time as a feed back
mechasm is required.

Supercavitation occurs when an object moving though water reaches

speeds in excess of 100 knots. The speed at the initial state is currently
unattainable using the conventional methods

Stabilizing the envelope is very difficult.

Envelope stabilization with speed.

Refrences

Cao Ziyao College of Marine Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University

Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China
Hong-Hui Shi,Lecturer , Motoyuki Itoh, ProfessorTakuya Takami,Graduate Student, Department of Mechanical
Engineering,Nagoya Institute of Technology,Gokiso-cho, Showa-ku, Nagoya 466-8555 Japan.
David R. Stinebring, John E. Dzielski, Jules W. Lindau, and Robert F. Kunz Applied Research Laboratory / Penn State
University, Ivan N. Kirschner, Neal E. Fine, James S. Uhlman,David C. Kring, and Benjamin J. RosenthalAnteon
Corporation Engineering Technology CenterOne Corporate PlaceMiddletown, RI 02842-6277 USA

Thomas A. Gieseke, Robert Kuklinski,and Abraham N. VargheseNaval Undersea Warfare Center Division1176 Howell
Street Newport, RI 02841-1708 USA

Seong S. Ahn, Massimo Ruzzene, Francesco Scorcelletti, and Carlo L. Bottasso

Victoria sturgeon racing through water: Supercavitation

Blint Vanek, Department of Aerospace Engineering and MechanicsUniversity of Minnesota

Balint Vanek, Jozsef Bokor and Gary BalasAerospace Engineering and Mechanics, UMN

www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1580226/shanghai-san-francisco-100-minutes-chinese-supersonicsubmarine?page=all

http://www.superkavitation.de/e1geschichte.htm

Thank You