OPTIMIZATION OF WATER CANNON OPERATION

Teymuraz Bitadze

New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ

Advisor: Dr. Ernest S. Geskin

Abstract

The presented study considers a design of water cannon – hydro-impulsive device generating super-high speed water slugs.

The objective of the presented work was to optimize the internal geometry parameters and operational parameters of the existing water cannon prototype. Water cannon operation was modeled using computational gas dynamic approach – Godunov’s method. The numerical model was experimentally validated. For optimization criterion a momentum integral of an effective part of the slug was chosen.

A factorial optimization method was implemented for maximizing of the criterion.

A set of cannon parameters and values of charge and liquid loads maximizing criterion function was obtained. The computations have shown more than 100% increase in the water cannon productivity at minor variation of some parameters.