Characteristic correlation between propellers cavitating wake and cavitation noise

The characteristic correlation between the propellers cavitating wake and their cavitation noise has been studied. Based on the viscous multiphase flow theory, the Navier-Stokes equations, a turbulence model and a cavitation model were applied to predict numerically the vapor volume fraction and the pressure in the wake. Compared with experimental results, the numerical predictions of the sheet cavitation and the tip vortex cavitation are in agreement with the corresponding experimental data, which indicates the numerical method in present paper is feasible. The characteristic of the low line spectra of the numerical pressure fluctuation signals and the measured noise signals for uniform inflow and wake flow is analyzed, and the characteristic correlation of the two line spectra is also validated. Therefore, it can be concluded that due to the wake and the radiated noise both modulated by the revolving propeller blades, the features of the low line spectra for noise signals and the pressure signals in the wake are close to each other.