Large-Scale Surface Effect Ship Bow Seal Experiments

Andrew D. Wiggins1, Steven F. Zalek1, Marc Perlin1, Steven L. Ceccio1, Lawrence J. Doctors2, Robert J. Etter3 1 Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA 2 School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, AUS 3 Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, West Bethesda, MD, USA The bow seal system on surface-effect ships (SES) consists of a series of open-ended fabric cylinders (fingers) that contact the free surface and, when inflated, form a compliant pressure barrier. The response characteristics are of practical interest due to unacceptable wear rates on seal components and difficulties in predicting seal performance. The objectives of this research are to investigate the physics of SES bow seals through large-scale physical experiments and to lay the groundwork for improved seal design tools. The experimental approach sidesteps the scaling problems that limited previous SES seal studies and enables the detailed measurements required to characterize bow seal response. Experiments were conducted at the U.S. Navy's Large Cavitation Channel in 2011 and 2012 using a seal testing platform, 8 meters in length, developed as part of this effort. Three seal geometries and two seal materials were tested at pressures from 0-3000 Pa and velocities to 8m/s. The experiments show that the seal cross-flow response is characterized by striking stable and unstable behavior, marked by the presence of travelling waves and mode-cycling. Based on high-speed video and data from a 3-d motion capture system, a classification of the primary seal response regimes is proposed. Scaling arguments are used to show that the cross-flow wavelength scales with velocity (cf ~ U-0.5 ) and wetted length (cf ~ lw-0.5 ) consistent with experimental results. These results demonstrate a feasible system for investigating seal physics within a free surface water channel and begin to identify important features of bow seal response. This work was funded, in part, by the Office of Naval Research