Experimental study on the cavitation flow and motion characteristics of the vehicle launched underwater

In this paper, an experimental system was independently designed to investigate the cavitation flow mechanism and motion characteristic of the vehicle launched underwater. Conducted experiments based on high-speed photography, and the influence of cavity morphological evolution and kinematic characteristics with the different launch and transverse velocities were analyzed. The results show that cavity shedding phenomenon occurs on different scales. Subsequently, a wide range of pressure impulse on the surface of the vehicle is caused by the collapse of large-scale cavity groups, resulting in an obvious sputtering phenomenon on its surface during the water-exit stage. The more the launch speed increases, the longer the initial cavity length is. Moreover, the moment of completely shedding the cavity delays during the water exit process; Furthermore, with the increase of transverse speed, the attitude angle generally shows an increasing trend, but its growth rate slowed down during the large-scale shedding stage of the cavity.