An adaptive ALE method for underwater explosion simulations including cavitation

The aim of this paper is to develop a numerical procedure for simulating a simplified mathematical model of underwater explosion phenomena. The Euler set of equations is selected as the governing equations and the ideal gas and Tammann equations of state (EOS) are used to obtain pressure in the gas bubble and the surrounding water zone, respectively. The modified Schmidt EOS is used to simulate the cavitation regions. An arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian method is used to integrate the governing equations over an unstructured moving grid. A mesh adapting technique is applied to increase the accuracy as well as for better capturing of flow physics. Moreover, a least-square smoother is employed to moderate the undesirable effects of gas–water interface irregularities. The numerical results verify that the proposed method is capable of predicting complex physics involved in a spherical underwater explosion. The method also shows a very good performance in smoothing the interface while minimizing the loss of mass and momentum in two-dimensional problems.