Forums > Windsurfing   Gps and Speed talk

Supercavitation

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Created by mathew > 9 months ago, 4 Jul 2008
decrepit
WA, 12767 posts
14 Jul 2008 5:52PM
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I think that's why nobody has figured out how to use supercavitation with wind powered craft yet.

NotWal
QLD, 7430 posts
14 Jul 2008 8:12PM
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grumplestiltskin said...

yoyo said...

I think it is from here
cse.umn.edu/aem

Basically a foil on a supercavitating torpedo that extends through the cavitation bubble into the water for steering the torpedo.




As a complete layman here, doesn't this highlight a basic fault with this whole argument.

In the case of the torpedo you gain massive speeds by enclosing it in a slippery bubble of cavitating gas, yep I understand that.
BUT, in order to facilitate steering, you have part of a foil extending outside the bubble (which is going to be subject to the vagaries of drag etc. as per any non supercavitating foil).

THEREFORE, in the case of a windsurfer foil, if you were going dead downwind and didnt require the ability to turn or steer, you would gain massive speeds by encasing your fin in a supercavitation bubble (forgetting the problems with apparent wind on your sail etc etc.) BUT by wanting to go across the wind and have some semblance of steering control the bubble becomes useless.

it seems this whole argument has forgotten the need for control, or am I missing something


With the supercavitating torpedo the thrust is in line with the direction of travel. Their foils work as much by drag as by lift. I guess they could be steered purely by variable drag.

Sailboards are different. The thrust is a vector sum of the lift from the sail and the lift from the fin, so although you could steer a sailboard with drag you can't do without the lift from the fin.

What we are (I was) wondering about is the viability of a working supercavitating foil, one that, like a conventional foil, provides lift with minimal drag. It doesn't appear to be possible if what Boogie says is correct, that the drag increases by a factor of ~10 to achieve the same lift.

C3
54 posts
14 Jul 2008 8:48PM
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nebbian said...

The canard on the Miller hydrofoil is supercavitating, and it appears to work just fine:

http://www.foils.org/miller.htm



no, it's not a supercavitating hydrofoil. it's a foil shape that was originally designed to work as a supercav foil, but which is used as a ventilated surface planer...

and yes, the shape works fine for the purpose.

Boogie

C3
54 posts
14 Jul 2008 9:09PM
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grumplestiltskin said...

As a complete layman here, doesn't this highlight a basic fault with this whole argument.

In the case of the torpedo you gain massive speeds by enclosing it in a slippery bubble of cavitating gas, yep I understand that.
BUT, in order to facilitate steering, you have part of a foil extending outside the bubble (which is going to be subject to the vagaries of drag etc. as per any non supercavitating foil).

THEREFORE, in the case of a windsurfer foil, if you were going dead downwind and didnt require the ability to turn or steer, you would gain massive speeds by encasing your fin in a supercavitation bubble (forgetting the problems with apparent wind on your sail etc etc.) BUT by wanting to go across the wind and have some semblance of steering control the bubble becomes useless.

it seems this whole argument has forgotten the need for control, or am I missing something


i don't really know why this example of the supercav torpedo comes up all the time.
yes, it's an application of using supercavitation to get a body through water faster, but it's not a lifting foil like we need for a windsurfer fin.
a supercavitating lifting foil has the supercav bubble only on the suction side. never on the pressure side, so a supercav foil is never "flying" in a bubble of gas anyway.

Boogie

Wineman
NSW, 1412 posts
14 Jul 2008 11:42PM
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Fascinated by these tecnical topics.

Good article on apparent wind at www.deniswee.net/ApparentWind/trueapp.htm

and vector diags



Soooo.....

the landyachties can do 120kph in 20-25kph of wind...on land...low friction

the limitation for windsurfers is fin & board surface contact with a much higher friction factor/interface.

I've been thinking for a while (similar to Nebs) about ventilating one side of the fin - but only ventilate when up to 30, 40 or whatever knots. You get the inertia that Notwal was referring to, instead of spin-out.

cast a tube into front of fin, drill fine pinholes, connect to tube out thru fin box

All great theory...who's gonna try it

nebbian
WA, 6277 posts
14 Jul 2008 10:17PM
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Hey Wineman, it's really piqued my curiosity...

I reckon all you'd need would be a wedge-shaped fin (sharp at the front, squared off at the back) and then drill a hole through to the top of the base right at the trailing edge. This is to let air into the low pressure gap behind the fin.

You'd make sure to use some form of washer arrangement to hold the fin in place that allowed air to be sucked down past the fin screw.

So then you'd have a fin with no low-pressure side -- it's all high pressure, hence no cavitation. And spinout wouldn't be a sudden loss of lift, it would be a gradual increase of board slew. A ventilating foil like this would be more efficient than a normal fin in spinout mode, due to the better shape of the high-pressure side (concave instead of convex). You could make it the right size as well.

It would probably be a lot less efficient than a normal foil shape though

C3
54 posts
14 Jul 2008 11:09PM
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nebbian said...

So then you'd have a fin with no low-pressure side -- it's all high pressure, hence no cavitation.

and no lift either... and that is what a fin is for. if you don't need the lift from the fin then the fastest non cavitating solution would sure be to use NO fin...

And spinout wouldn't be a sudden loss of lift, it would be a gradual increase of board slew.

why? if you would try to put any angle of attack on the wedge fin to create some lift, you would get a sudden spin out from the separation at the leading edge. you could probably delay that somewhat by increasing the thickness/angle of the wedge, but projected frontal area is a major factor for drag.


It would probably be a lot less efficient than a normal foil shape though

very true... and because it is possible to delay cavitation with some simple tricks up to around 60kn... what's the point?

Boogie

nebbian
WA, 6277 posts
14 Jul 2008 11:35PM
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C3 said...
very true... and because it is possible to delay cavitation with some simple tricks up to around 60kn... what's the point?


Fun

oldie
VIC, 356 posts
15 Jul 2008 1:00PM
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One of the tricks is to put no side pressure on the fin, maybe?
Seems to be a spun out fin regains a bit of support at 30 degrees off straight ahead, which lets one survive at low speeds.
I will try grinding the back half of the low pressure side concave, but I don't think fun will be the result.
Got to decide which is the most futile fin around here to sacrifice...

NotWal
QLD, 7430 posts
16 Jul 2008 3:21PM
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C3 said...

... and because it is possible to delay cavitation with some simple tricks up to around 60kn... what's the point?

Boogie




What tricks, in principle at least if you are (understandably) reluctant to give away your secrets?

Is it true that cavitation starts as low as 20~30 knots and gets out of hand at 50?

C3
54 posts
16 Jul 2008 9:26PM
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NotWal said...

C3 said...

... and because it is possible to delay cavitation with some simple tricks up to around 60kn... what's the point?

Boogie




What tricks, in principle at least if you are (understandably) reluctant to give away your secrets?

Is it true that cavitation starts as low as 20~30 knots and gets out of hand at 50?


here you can see pictures of cavitation at 16kn [8m/s]....
http://www.fluidlab.naoe.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Research/CavPictures/

with most current windsurfing fin designs you get cavitation inception around 42 to 44kn in my estimation, but by adjusting the sectional shape to a section which is designed to delay the onset of cavitation, thinning out the section and using rake you can increase the cavitation inception speed.
but of course it's all about finding the best compromise. most measures you can take to delay the cavitation have negative effect on other parts of the performance envelope.
the higher you try to push the cavitation inception speed the smaller the usable range becomes.

Boogie

hardie
WA, 4129 posts
18 Jul 2008 8:05PM
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C3 said...here you can see pictures of cavitation at 16kn [8m/s]....
http://www.fluidlab.naoe.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Research/CavPictures/

with most current windsurfing fin designs you get cavitation inception around 42 to 44kn in my estimation, but by adjusting the sectional shape to a section which is designed to delay the onset of cavitation, thinning out the section and using rake you can increase the cavitation inception speed.
but of course it's all about finding the best compromise. most measures you can take to delay the cavitation have negative effect on other parts of the performance envelope.
the higher you try to push the cavitation inception speed the smaller the usable range becomes.

Boogie
www.C3-fins.com





Boogie we in Mandurah have weed and shallow water with sea grass just beneath the surface to contend with and 45 degrees weed fins work best. However, the points you make above suggest that probably for every degree of rake we are probably losing something? Can you explain a bit more please!! I have some 40 degree weed fins which appear to be slightly faster, but when the water is shallow they appear to plough more through the grass? Are you ever intending to build some fast weed fins? We here try to build our own through trial and error any hints on how we could make a fast weed fin, particularly if you have no interest??

C3
54 posts
25 Jul 2008 8:14AM
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in simple words you could say that the more rake a fin has the more angle of attack you need for the same amount of power.
at very high speeds this is hardly noticeable, but at lower speeds it feels like the board is creeping with the tail out. but at the same time the stal angle is increased as well, which makes the fins raked fins feel quite secure.
but there are a few problems to overcome to make heavily raked fins perform well.
the center of effort is moved back quite a bit which upsets the trim of the sail/board combo.
if i would sail in a spot exclusively on weed fins i would move the fin box further forward to re-balance the CoE of the fin to the standard fin balance.
to get fins with rake working nicely it is easiest to use fins that are very stiff, as any flex in raked fin causes the tip to twist off which transfers the power closer to the base which can lead to spinouts.

you also need to consider the taper ratio when changing the rake a lot.

http://picasaweb.google.com/C3carbon/Design/photo#5008932566699128018
picasaweb.google.com/C3carbon/Design/photo#5226722255199320226

i don't know yet if C3 will brig out a dedicated weed fin in the future, but it's certainly not rled out.


Boogie

hardie
WA, 4129 posts
25 Jul 2008 9:33AM
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C3 said...

in simple words you could say that the more rake a fin has the more angle of attack you need for the same amount of power.
at very high speeds this is hardly noticeable, but at lower speeds it feels like the board is creeping with the tail out. but at the same time the stal angle is increased as well, which makes the fins raked fins feel quite secure.
but there are a few problems to overcome to make heavily raked fins perform well.
the center of effort is moved back quite a bit which upsets the trim of the sail/board combo.
if i would sail in a spot exclusively on weed fins i would move the fin box further forward to re-balance the CoE of the fin to the standard fin balance.
to get fins with rake working nicely it is easiest to use fins that are very stiff, as any flex in raked fin causes the tip to twist off which transfers the power closer to the base which can lead to spinouts.

you also need to consider the taper ratio when changing the rake a lot.

http://picasaweb.google.com/C3carbon/Design/photo#5008932566699128018
picasaweb.google.com/C3carbon/Design/photo#5226722255199320226

i don't know yet if C3 will brig out a dedicated weed fin in the future, but it's certainly not rled out.


Boogie
www.C3-fins.com




Thanx heaps boogie, let us know if you do build a weedy, there'll certainly be some interest from the Mandurah crew and those that sail here.

decrepit
WA, 12767 posts
25 Jul 2008 11:20AM
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Very informative boogie, thanks a lot, I hadn't realised the taper ratio changed like that. hope you don't mind another question another question.

C3 said...

in simple words you could say that the more rake a fin has the more angle of attack you need for the same amount of power.


Is that for the same thickness to chord ratio?

What happens if you keep the thickness to flow ratio the same?

jp747
1553 posts
25 Jul 2008 4:14PM
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grumplestiltskin said...

yoyo said...

I think it is from here
cse.umn.edu/aem

Basically a foil on a supercavitating torpedo that extends through the cavitation bubble into the water for steering the torpedo.




As a complete layman here, doesn't this highlight a basic fault with this whole argument.

In the case of the torpedo you gain massive speeds by enclosing it in a slippery bubble of cavitating gas, yep I understand that.
BUT, in order to facilitate steering, you have part of a foil extending outside the bubble (which is going to be subject to the vagaries of drag etc. as per any non supercavitating foil).

THEREFORE, in the case of a windsurfer foil, if you were going dead downwind and didnt require the ability to turn or steer, you would gain massive speeds by encasing your fin in a supercavitation bubble (forgetting the problems with apparent wind on your sail etc etc.) BUT by wanting to go across the wind and have some semblance of steering control the bubble becomes useless.

it seems this whole argument has forgotten the need for control, or am I missing something


am just curious when i happen to see on the tube Discovery's channel smash labs supercavitating rescue vehicle thrown from atop a heli and when it drops the front bumper blade makes a bubble and encases the whole vehicle to limit g forces as it breaks thru the water,,going back to sailing doesn't the fin need some kind of grip to get speedinside the bubble i would presume it's all bubbly and density is low..so then if this was true to make a board go faster it would be safe to make some sort of smaller fin just infront of the leading edge of the board's fin and make this cavity to lessen frictionif am missing the whole point here then just disregard my comment



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"Supercavitation" started by mathew