Ultrasonics Sonochemistry (Feb 2024)

LES investigation of the wavy leading edge effect on cavitation noise

  • Zhongpo Yang,
  • Xincheng Wang,
  • Xiaotao Zhao,
  • Huaiyu Cheng,
  • Bin Ji

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 103
p. 106780

Abstract

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This paper investigates the noise reduction performance of biomimetic hydrofoils with wavy leading edge and the corresponding mechanisms. We employ Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approach and permeable Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (PFW–H) method to predict cavitation noise around the baseline and biomimetic hydrofoils. The results show that the wavy leading edge can effectively reduce the high-frequency noise, but has little effect on the low-frequency noise. Further analyses and discussions deal with the noise reduction mechanisms. The main source for the low-frequency noise is the cavity volume acceleration, while the wavy leading edge has little effect on it. The high-frequency noise sources, related to the surface pressure fluctuations and the turbulence characteristics, are significantly suppressed by the wavy leading edge, thus decreasing the high-frequency noise intensity. Our investigation indicates that the wavy leading edge has great prospects for cavitation noise reduction technique.

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