Bifurcation Behavior of a Supercavitating Vehicle

In this effort, a numerical study of the bifurcation behavior of a supercavitating vehicle is conducted. The nonsmoothness of this system is due to the planing force acting on the vehicle. With a focus on dive-plane dynamics, bifurcations with respect to a quasi-static variation of the cavitation number are studied. The system is found to exhibit rich and complex dynamics including nonsmooth bifurcations such as the grazing bifurcation and smooth bifurcations such as Hopf bifurcations, cyclic-fold bifurcations, and period-doubling bifurcations, chaotic attractors, transient chaotic motions, and crises. The tailslap phenomenon of the supercavitating vehicle is identified as a consequence of the Hopf bifurcation followed by a grazing event. It is shown that the occurrence of these bifurcations can be delayed or triggered earlier by using dynamic linear feedback control aided by washout filters.