Scaling of Tip Vortex Cavitation Inception Noise With a Bubble Dynamics Model Accounting for Nucleus Size Distribution

Abstract

A Surface-Averaged Pressure (SAP) spherical bubble dynamics model accounting for a statistical nuclei size distribution was used to model the acoustic signals generated by cavitating bubbles near inception in a tip vortex flow. The flow field generated by finite-span elliptic hydrofoils is obtained by Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes computations. An “acoustic” criterion which defines the cavitation inception by counting the number of acoustical signal peaks that exceed a certain level per unit time was applied to deduce the cavitation inception number for different scales. It was found that the larger scale results in more cavitation inception events per unite time because more nuclei are excited by the tip vortex at the larger scale. The nuclei size was seen to have an important effect on cavitation inception number with scaling effects due to nuclei increasing as nuclei sizes decreases.