Ultrasonic Measurement of Gas Bubbles Advecting Under a Ship Bottom for Investigating Drag Reduction Performance

Bubbles injected into a turbulent boundary layer have a significant potential to reduce frictional shear stress, but this drag reduction technique has not been optimized yet because of its low and unstable performance. If monitoring and controlling of advective bubbles beneath ships are realized, these provide insight for improving the performance. In this paper, we performed experiments using a model ship with 4 m in length in a towing tank with 80 m in distance. The model ship is fully made of acrylic resin and mounts shear stress sensors and ultrasonic measurement system. The shear stress and bubble information, such as a void fraction and a thickness of liquid film above the bubbles, are obtained at three locations arranged at the front, the middle and the rear of the ship bottom plane. By analyzing these data, it is confirmed that the drag reduction occurs when a thin liquid film exists.