An experimental and numerical prediction of marine propeller noise under cavitating and non- cavitating conditions

Abstract

In this study, the hydrodynamics and noise prediction of a five blade marine propeller were analyzed through numerical and experimental methods under variety operational conditions. The hydrodynamics of the propeller was studied and the characteristic curves were presented in both numerical and experimental methods. Inception and development of sheet cavitation conditions are obtained in both numerical and experimental methods. The cavitation was started and developed by either increasing the propeller rotational speed in constant pressure or decreasing pressure, while the velocity was kept constant. Good agreements are observed between numerical and experimental results, qualitatively and quantitatively. The noise of the propeller was analyzed through Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, based on the formulation of Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H). Similarly, the experimental results collected from hydrophones were compared with numerical simulations. Finally, the effects of reflection in cavitation tunnel were obtained by considering overall sound pressure levels in numerical and experimental results.