• cavitation
• cfd
• multiphase
• sailboat
• star-ccm+
• transient

This dissertation documents a CFD method with the solver STAR-CCM+ to study the transient of an accelerating cavitating body from standstill to full speed, in order to support the design and optimization process of a supercavitating hydrofoil for a project of the French company Syroco aiming to beat the world sailing speed record, reaching 150 km/h.
Syroco is a company that focuses on acting as a long-term catalyst for innovation using the moonshot approach: working on large, ambitious projects lets them stretch technologies to their limit, pushing for new developments that can improve the world of sailing.
The method described in this dissertation has been developed with assistance from CUBIT’s Fluid Dynamics Division. CUBIT is a consortium that aims to apply cutting-edge scientific research to set new standards in the fields of IoT, custom electronics and firmware design, industrial cybersecurity, and fluid dynamics.
Since the main objective of this method is to help with the design process, which is inherently iterative, it was mandatory to keep into consideration not only the accuracy of the results as well as the computational costs to allow for faster simulation times and shorter iterations in the design loop.
This was possible by using the “Singhal” cavitation model for its robustness paired with the Mesh Motion model for simulating the acceleration of the body.
Using this method, an analysis on the transient was performed. The results shown in Chapter 6 help understand the effects of acceleration on the cavitating hydrofoil as well as the relationships between the stationary and transient scenarios, offering a way to model the transient using a small amount of pre-existing data.