Flow Field Characteristic Analysis of Cushion System of Partial Air Cushion Support Catamaran in Regular Waves

Abstract In order to study the flow field characteristics of cushion system of partial air cushion support catamaran (PACSCAT) in waves, an analysis was carried out involving flexible treatment on the bow and stern air seals to simulate air seal shape under test conditions by means of computational fluid dynamics method and fluid structure interaction (FSI) method. On this basis, the pressure conditions of the air cushion chamber and the pressurized chamber at different wavelengths and different speeds are studied and compared with experimental results. The experimental results show that: for the air cushion pressure, the nonlinear characteristics of the numerical calculation results are more subtle than the experimental values, after linear transformation, the amplitudes of the experimental values are obviously greater than the calculated values after linear transformation, but the average values are not much different; At low speed of 2.0m/s, the spatial pressure distribution of the pressurized chamber and the air cushion chamber are uniformly distributed, at high speed of 3.6m/s, except for a certain pressure jump occurred in the air cushion chamber near the stern air seal, the pressure in other spaces is also evenly distributed, it proves that the pressurized chamber type of air intake can effectively meet the air cushion pressure balance.