Wake flow past a submerged plate that is normal to the stream #

Elle Mclean

13:50 Tuesday in 2Q48.

Part of the Self-propulsion and fluid-body interactions session.

Abstract #

A wake model is pursued for potential flow past a submerged, finite-length plate that is perpendicular to a uniform horizontal stream which is bounded above by a free surface. The effects of gravity are included along the free surface. The approach is to adopt a closure model such that the wake boundaries become parallel to the undisturbed stream at some point downstream. In particular, we seek wave-free solutions. Boundary integral equations are formed and then discretised along the wake boundaries and free surface in order to obtain a solution numerically. It is found that the flow is dependent on three parameters: the Froude number, cavitation number and length of the vertical plate. These dependencies will be discussed regarding the effects on several factors, including the size of the wake, the relative lengths of the upper and lower wake boundaries, and the resulting draft (the depth of the bottom of the vertical plate relative to the undisturbed free surface) of the submerged plate.