Numerical Simulation of Underwater Supersonic Jet of Vehicle with Shell-Shaped Flow Control Structure

Abstract

When the underwater vehicle engine operates under the condition of over-expansion, the violent pulsation of the flow field pressure at the rear of the nozzle can cause violent fluctuations in engine thrust, leading to engine instability. In order to improve the engine's stability, this study drew inspiration from the wave attenuation characteristics of the shell-shaped surface texture structure and added a multi-layer shell-shaped texture structure to the rear wall to reduce pressure fluctuations in the flow field at the rear of the nozzle . Based on the numerical simulation method, the effects of different bionic shell-shaped structures on jet morphology, wall pressure and engine thrust were compared and analyzed. The results show that the multi-layer bionic shell-shaped texture structure can effectively inhibit the occurrence of periodic phenomena such as bulge, necking, and return stroke in the rear flow field, so as to effectively reduce the pressure fluctuation in the rear flow field of the nozzle. In addition, when the momentum thrust is almost unchanged, it is found through calculations that during the initial stage of the jet, the suppression of thrust is not significant. After 0.005 seconds, the oscillation amplitude of the combined force of pressure difference thrust and back pressure thrust decreased by 22%, and the oscillation amplitude of the total thrust decreased by 20%.

Keywords

• underwater vehicle engine
• shell-shaped medium
• pressure pulsation
• numerical simulation
• flow control