Increase In Inflow Velocity Research Articles

Rotor noise in non-axial inflow conditions

This paper presents an experimental study on characterising the aerodynamic and far-field acoustic performance of rotors operating in non-axial inflow conditions. The current experiments were carried out with a two-bladed rotor, operating with a tip Mach number of 0.56, approaching the practical tip Mach numbers expected of urban air mobility vehicles. Synchronous measurements of the aerodynamic force, far-field acoustics and blade phase angle were undertaken to provide insights on both the time-averaged and phase-averaged correlation between the rotor aerodynamic loading and the emitted noise. The far-field acoustic spectra are compared across a range of advance ratios (0.01≤μ≤0.04) and forward tilting angles (0°≤α≤30°). When the inflow velocity increases, both the tonal and broadband components increase. Moreover, higher harmonics of the blade passing frequency are observed to become more prominent at higher advance ratios. As the rotor tilts forward from edgewise flight conditions, the broadband noise component reduces significantly, with the tones at fundamental blade passing frequency and higher harmonics also reducing in magnitude, agreeing well with the steady and unsteady thrust coefficients measured. From the aerodynamic loading, acoustic spectra and the directivity results, a transition from near-edgewise to near-axial modes of operation can be discerned at a tilt angle of approximately 16°. More interestingly, the phase-averaged thrust and acoustic power results show notable variations of the blade loading and acoustic emission through one full rotor rotation. At higher advance ratios and shallow tilting angles, the phase location of peaks in the root-mean-square of the fluctuating thrust coefficient agrees very well with those from the acoustic power, suggesting a strong correlation between the flow unsteadiness and the noise at these non-axial conditions, contributing to higher overall sound pressure levels.

Evaluation of plant canopy microclimates with realistic plants in plant factories with artificial light using a computational fluid dynamics model

Airflow parameters play a vital role in regulating the microclimate of the plant canopy and significantly affect plant development and growth in plant factories with artificial light (PFALs). A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model with a realistic soybean canopy was developed to predict the distribution of radiation (W m−2), leaf temperature (°C), air velocity (m s−1), air temperature (°C), and relative humidity (%) within a plant canopy. The accuracy of the CFD model was confirmed by comparing mean absolute percentage errors of these variables which were 9.9 %, 1.4 %, 11.4 %, 0.8 %, and 1.8 %, respectively. The validated CFD model was used to simulate the lamp temperature and microclimate distribution of the soybean canopy under different inflow parameter levels on a cultivation shelf. The results revealed that the microclimate was primarily influenced by lamp radiation rather than convective heat when the inflow velocity was below 0.57 m s−1. Inflow velocity, air temperature, and relative humidity exerted more significant effects on air velocity, air temperature, and relative humidity, respectively, than the other variables in the plant canopy. The increase of inflow velocity significantly improved the uniformity of air velocity, temperature, and relative humidity in the plant canopy. However, note that this study investigated the lamp temperature and microclimate distribution in plant canopies under different airflow parameters using the CFD model without coupling plant transpiration to the surrounding climate. This provides valuable insights into the control of the plant canopy microclimate in general and more particularly on the shelves of PFALs.

Numerical Simulation of Chemical Reactions’ Influence on Convective Heat Transfer in Hydrothermal Circulation Reaction Zones

Chemical reactions, mineral diffusion, and deposition are pivotal in understanding the mechanisms of mineral deposition and the formation of seafloor sulfides in the hydrothermal circulation process. To understand the formation process of anhydrite in submarine hydrothermal systems, a computational model that combined component transport and chemical reactions was established and simulated using the mass transport model. The deposition rate of calcium sulfate was defined, and the effects of factors such as porosity, ion concentration, and inflow velocity on the temperature field in the reaction zone were thoroughly investigated. The distribution of temperature, porosity, and velocity during the reaction process was obtained, allowing for the identification of the chemical reaction patterns of certain ions in the early stages of hydrothermal activity. The simulation revealed the occurrence of biochemical reactions between two types of ions, leading to their deposition on the solid framework of a porous medium. With the increase in inflow velocity and solute concentration, the average porosities of the porous medium decreased by 0.495% and 0.468%, respectively, which consequently altered the structure of the rock. Such findings contribute to the inference of formation and extinction mechanisms of seafloor crusts and hydrothermal chimneys.

Solid–Liquid Two-Phase Flowmeter Flow-Passage Wall Erosion Evolution Characteristics and Calibration of Measurement Accuracy

Solid–liquid two-phase flowmeters are widely used in critical sectors, such as petrochemicals, energy, manufacturing, the environment, and various other fields. They are indispensable devices for measuring flow. Currently, research has primarily focused on gas–liquid two-phase flow within the flowmeter, giving limited attention to the impact of solid phases. In practical applications, crude oil frequently contains solid particles and other impurities, leading to equipment deformation and a subsequent reduction in measuring accuracy. This paper investigates how particle dynamic parameters affect the erosion evolution characteristics of flowmeters operating in solid–liquid two-phase conditions, employing the dynamic boundary erosion prediction method. The results indicate that the erosion range and peak erosion position on the overcurrent wall of the solid–liquid two-phase flowmeter vary with different particle dynamic parameters. Erosion mainly occurs at the contraction section of the solid–liquid two-phase flowmeter. When the particle inflow velocity increases, the erosion range shows no significant change, but the peak erosion position shifts to the right, primarily due to the evolution of the erosion process. With an increase in particle diameter, the erosion range expands along the inlet direction due to turbulent diffusion, as particles with lower kinetic energy exhibit better followability. There is no significant change in the erosion range and peak erosion position with an increase in particle volume fraction and particle sphericity. With a particle inflow velocity of 8.4 m/s, the maximum erosion depth reaches 750 μm. In contrast, at a particle sphericity of 0.58, the minimum erosion depth is 251 μm. Furthermore, a particle volume fraction of 0.5 results in a maximum flow coefficient increase of 1.99 × 10−3.

Numerical Simulation of Water Film Flow and Breakup on Anti-Icing Surface

The flow and morphological characteristics of liquid water on the icing and anti-icing surfaces of aircraft are closely related to the icing characteristics and anti-icing surface temperature distribution. To predict the flow and breakup characteristics of a water film, a 3D model of continuous water film flow and a model of water film breakup into rivulets on an anti-icing surface were constructed based on the icing model, and the corresponding methods for solving the models were developed. Using the NACA0012 airfoil as a simulation object, the changing characteristics of height and velocity for a continuous water film with time and the morphological characteristics of rivulets formed from the breakup of a continuous water film were simulated numerically. The results indicate that, with an increase in inflow velocity, the time required for the water film to completely cover the surface and reach stability decreases. Downstream in the water droplet impact zone, the calculated values of continuous water film height align well with experiments, as well as the stream height at the continuous water film rupture location with the experimental values. With the reasonable contact angle, the calculation error of the stream width is within 10%.

Numerical Investigation of Supercooled Large Droplets Impingement Characteristics of the Rotating Spinner

Aircraft engine icing caused by supercooled large droplets (SLD) poses a significant threat to flight safety. In this paper, the SLD impingement characteristics of the rotating spinner were investigated using FLUENT UDS and the governing equations for water droplet motion were solved based on the Eulerian method. The droplet breakup was simulated using the number density equation, while the droplet rebound and splashing were simulated using a semiempirical model. The effects of rotational speed, droplet diameter, and inflow velocity on the SLD impingement characteristics of the rotating spinner were studied. Some new valuable insights have been found for the SLD impingement. The results indicated that as the rotational speed increases, the local collection efficiency of the rotating spinner decreases. Higher rotational speed results in reduced droplet impingement angle and stronger droplet rebound and splashing. For the droplets with diameters smaller than 111 μm, the local collection efficiency increases with the increase of the droplet diameter. However, when the droplet diameter exceeds 111 μm, the local collection efficiency decreases near the leading edge of the rotating spinner. Additionally, the local collection efficiency decreases as the inflow velocity increases near the leading edge of the rotating spinner. However, higher inflow velocities lead to larger droplet impingement angles, resulting in higher local collection efficiency near the tail of the rotating spinner. The critical impingement angle increases with the increase of the inflow velocity, leading to a more pronounced rebound and splashing of SLD. The research in this paper provides useful help for ice shape prediction and anti-icing system design of rotating spinner in SLD environment.

Numerical study on the dynamic process of ramjet/scramjet mode transition in the integrated full flow path for RBCC engine

As the inflow velocity increases, rocket-based combined cycle(RBCC) engine typically require a ramjet/scramjet mode transition within the flight range Ma∞ = 5.5 to 6.0. However, during the mode transition process, the reduction of the fuel mass flow rate usually causes the combustion intensity in the engine to drop sharply in a very short time, which will further lead to severe thrust fluctuations. So some technical methods need to be applied in this process to realize smooth mode transition. In this paper, different throttling strategies (kerosene mass flow rate dominant and rocket mass flow rate dominant) were designed and employed to study the dynamic mode transition process in the integrated RBCC engine flow path through three-dimensional numerical simulation for flight Ma∞ = 5.5 and Ma∞ = 6.0, respectively. The results show that when RBCC engine operates under the condition of large mass flow rate of fuel, the wall flow separation zone caused by oblique shock wave and combustion cannot be effectively improved by the bleed block and the inlet is still in the limit working state. Under flight Ma∞ = 5.5 condition, with the reduction of fuel equivalence ratio, RBCC engine successfully transited from ramjet mode to scramjet mode, and the flow separation zone near the bleed block disappeared. At this time, the high temperature gas of the rocket has no obvious effect on the thrust gain of the engine. By adjusting fuel mass flow rate in a small range and rocket mass flow rate in a large range, stable mode transition can be achieved, with relatively small time consumption and minimum thrust fluctuation during mode transition. With the increase of flight altitude, under flight Ma∞ = 6.0, the incoming flow speed increases, but the air capture ability of the inlet decreases, which is not conducive to the mixing of fuel and air combustion. When Ma∞ = 5.5, the mode transition by reducing the fuel equivalence ratio will cause the RBCC engine to produce huge thrust fluctuations, and the range of the high-pressure zone in the combustor will be greatly reduced. In order to ensure the stable operation of the RBCC engine, the rocket needs to operate at a larger mass flow rate.

Flame behaviors and severity parameters of hexogen cloud explosion in the combustion chamber

Hexogen (RDX) is a typical explosive raw material commonly used. The energy output of explosive dust explosion is higher than that of general industrial dust. Therefore, research on the energetic dust explosion is vital for military and disaster prevention. In this study, a two-dimensional semi-constrained combustor was established to numerically study the effects of inflow velocity, initial combustor temperature, and dust concentration on RDX dust explosion in a flowing state. The results show that the explosion process of flowing RDX dust in the combustion chamber has a critical initiation temperature that increases from 900 K to 3500 K with an increase in inflow velocity (50–150 m/s) at a dust concentration of 900 g/m3. Meanwhile, the explosion initiation time and initiation location of RDX dust delay with airflow velocity. At higher initial combustor temperature and transient dust concentration, the explosion flame surface transforms from a ‘plane’ to a ‘finger’ shape and then propagates to both sides. However, the flame spreads forward in a single direction at a low dust concentration (300 g/m3). As the initial temperature of the combustion chamber rises, the explosion initiation time and location decrease. At RDX dust concentrations of 300–1500 g/m3, the explosion overpressure rises significantly from 0.476 to 3.37 MPa, while the flame temperature increases slightly from 4000 to 4300 K, indicating the sensitivity of explosion overpressure to dust concentration is higher than that of flame temperature.

Surface roughness effects on a tensioned riser vortex-induced vibration in the uniform current

Due to the long-term operation of marine riser, marine organisms will adsorb on its surface, thus affect its surface roughness. The surface roughness of the riser will affect the wake flow field of the riser, and then affect the dynamic characteristics of the vortex-induced vibration (VIV). The study of the influence of surface roughness on the characteristics of a rough riser VIV is helpful to improve our understanding of the mechanism of a rough riser VIV and ensure the safety of the riser during its service life. Based on the methods of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structure dynamics (CSD), this study presents the model considering tension variation with the structure vibration and the modified model of rough wall velocity gradient to construct the numerical calculation program of a rough riser VIV to study effects of various key parameters (surface roughness, inflow velocities) on the dynamic characteristics, vibration response, wake vortex shedding patterns and vibration trajectories of a rough riser. The results show that in the range of Reynolds number Re = 2.515 × 104∼1.258×105 and reduced velocity U* = 1.35–6.74, compared with a smooth riser, the streamwise vibration amplitude of a rough riser decreases, and with the increase of inflow velocity and surface roughness, the streamwise vibration amplitude of a rough riser decreases more and more obviously. In the range of reduced velocity U* = 2.70–5.39, the transverse vibration amplitude of a rough riser increases slightly. At a higher reduced velocity (U* = 6.74), the transverse vibration amplitude of the rough riser decreases. Larger surface roughness will enhance the multi-frequency and broadband vibration characteristics of the riser in the streamwise direction. With the increase of surface roughness, the multi-frequency vibration characteristics decrease gradually, but the broadband vibration characteristics increase gradually in the transverse direction. Surface roughness can suppress 2T and 2P wake vortex shedding pattern and enhance 2C wake vortex shedding pattern. This study will provide a profound understanding to guide the practical marine riser VIV research with the consideration of surface roughness.

Performance Deterioration of Pitot Tubes Caused by In-Flight Ice Accretion: A Numerical Investigation

In-flight ice accretion on typical pitot-static systems is numerically investigated to reveal their performance deterioration under both rime and glaze icing. Coupled with the open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform, OpenFOAM, the numerical strategy integrates the airflow determination by the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, droplet collection evaluation by Eulerian representation, and ice accumulation by mass and energy conservation. Under varying inflow conditions and wall temperatures, the calculated ice accretion performance indicates that the ambient temperature has the most significant effect on the icing-induced failure time, leading to an almost exponential growth. Meanwhile, the blocking time is found to be linearly proportional to the increase in wall temperature. With the increase in inflow velocity, the failure time follows a parabolic variation with glaze ice accretion while shows a monotonic reduction under rime icing conditions. In addition, when the angle of attack increases, failure accelerates under both the glaze and rime icing scenarios. These findings provide guidance for the protection design of pitot tubes. A nonlinear regression analysis is further conducted to estimate the failure performance. The predicated failure times show reliable consistency with numerical results, demonstrating the capability of the obtained empirical functions for convenient predictions of failure times within the applicable range.

Experimental study of suffusion characteristics within granite residual soil controlling inflow velocity

Suffusion is a particular case of internal erosion due to water seepage through a porous media, which is a main cause of the failure of dam and embankment. There are a lot more to understand due to its inherent complexity. In order to study the development of suffusion, a test device taken into account inflow velocity is designed to simulate the suffusion process in this paper. Three laboratory tests on granite residual soil are presented aimed at investigating the suffusion erosion of fine particles from soil samples subjected to a controlled inflow velocity. The processes of erosion can be observed during the tests. The variation of wetting front, moisture, and erosion amount under different inflow velocities is measured to study the effect of inflow velocity on suffusion within granite residual soil which has high contents of fine particles. As the inflow velocity increases, the wetting speed of the wetting front will increase, and the erosion amount will also increase. The larger inflow velocity would lead to the higher extent of suffusion. The soil column will form preferential channels or fine particle redeposition, which will cause the soil moisture content to fluctuate. The suffusion process in granite residual soil includes fine particles erosion, reposition, pore clogging, and flushing.

Numerical Study on the Aerodynamic Performance of the Rigid and Corrugated Forewing of Dragonfly in Flapping Flight

The dragonfly flapping flight as a kind of important flight model, in order to explore the aerodynamic effect on the forewing of dragonfly in flapping. Based on the real dragonfly wings(with corrugation 3D forewing), this paper uses X-flow software numerical simulation for the model, analyzed the influence of different flow velocity and frequency on the aerodynamic effect of the forewing of dragonfly. When the dragonfly flies forward stably, the results show that it has a higher lift with the increase of inflow velocity and flapping frequency. The leading edge vortex (LEV) of the dragonfly’s forewing does not fall off in a flapping period, and the maximum positive lift is generated in the downstroke. When the trailing edge vortex is strong, the peak value of thrust coefficient appears in the process of flapping, and the energy of the trailing edge vortex may provide the thrust for the dragonfly forward flight.

Energy saving performance analysis of contra-rotating azimuth propulsor. Part 2: Optimal matching investigation in model scale

The propulsive efficiency maximization of contra-rotating azimuth propulsor (CRAP) at model scale is investigated through searching the optimal matching rotational speeds of the forward propeller (FP) and rear propeller (RP) of CRAP based on the potential-based panel method. The hydrodynamic performance of CRAP with changing rotational speeds (FP and RP may have different rotational speeds) are calculated. When the inflow velocity is certain, the cubic spline interpolation method is used to get the equal thrust points at which CRAP has the same thrust with the corresponding conventional propeller (CP). Then, the delivered powers at these equal thrust points are further obtained through cubic spline interpolation method. The rotational speeds of FP and RP at the equal thrust point corresponding to the minimal delivered power are the optimal matching rotational speeds of CRAP. The optimal matching calculations are carried out at different inflow velocities. The results of the optimal matching investigation show that CRAP has the lowest delivered powers when FP and RP have the optimal matching rotational speeds and that the energy saving level decreases with the increase of inflow velocity. The optimal matching rotational speed ratio decreases with the increase of inflow velocity. In general, the delivered powers of CRAP having optimal matching rotational speeds at different inflow velocities are obviously smaller than those of CP.

Added-mass effects on a horizontal-axis tidal turbine using FAST v8

Abstract Added mass on tidal turbine blades has the potential to alter the blade dynamic response, such as natural frequencies and vibration amplitudes, as a response to blade acceleration. Currently, most aeroelastic design tools do not consider such effects as they are complex and expensive to model, and they are not an intrinsic part of most blade-element momentum theory codes, which are commonly used in the tidal energy industry. This article outlines the addition of added-mass effects to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's design tool FAST v8. A verification is presented for a spring-mass system with an initial displacement, and a case study is performed for the Reference Model 1 20-m-diameter tidal turbine. For the 20-m-diameter turbine, it was shown that the natural frequency of vibration is reduced by 65% when added mass is considered. Further, the thrust loads are increased by 2.5% when the blades are excited by a 5% step increase in inflow velocity when added mass is considered. This decrease can have a significant impact on the overall turbine design, as it is important to design the blades with a natural frequency so that they are not excited by the rotor speed and its harmonics, wherein aerodynamic excitation can lead to fatigue damage. However, it was shown that when turbulent inflow with an intensity of 20% was modeled, there was almost no impact on the loads and blade displacement with added-mass effects except for a small difference in the fatigue response of the blade to turbulent load fluctuations.

Post-flutter response of a flexible cantilever plate in low subsonic flows

Numerical simulations on the post-flutter response of a flexible cantilever plate are carried out by establishing a nonlinear aeroelastic model. The present study shows that chaotic movements may exist in the three-dimensional panel flutter problems in case of low subsonic flows. In the analysis, time traces, phase-plane plots, Poincare maps as well as power spectral densities are employed to identify the dynamic behavior of the system. It is observed that the plate undergoes period-1, period-3 and non-periodic motions with the increase of inflow velocity. The post-flutter behavior is dominated by both geometric and aerodynamic nonlinearities. Numerical results show that wingtip vortexes are in fact an important source of aerodynamic nonlinearities, which have not been fully studied before. The study also provides a criterion on how to choose a coupling strategy in the nonlinear aeroelastic simulation of a low-aspect-ratio flexible structure in low subsonic flows when the dominant nonlinear effect is different in the post-flutter response.

Flow Simulation and Aerodynamic Noise Prediction for a High-Speed Train Wheelset

Aerodynamic noise becomes significant for high-speed trains and its prediction in an industrial context is hard to achieve. The aerodynamic and aeroacoustic behaviour of the flow past a high-speed train wheelset, one of the main components of a bogie, are investigated at a scale 1:10 using a two-stage hybrid method of computational fluid dynamics and acoustic analogy. The near-field unsteady flow is obtained by solving the Navier-Stokes equations numerically through delayed detached-eddy simulations and the results are fed to predict the far-field noise signals using the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings acoustic analogy. Far-field sound radiated from the scaled model is also measured in a low noise open-jet anechoic wind tunnel. Good agreement is achieved between numerical and experimental results for the dominant frequency of tonal noise and the shape of the spectra. Results show that turbulent flow past the wheelset is characterized by three-dimensional streamwise and spanwise vortices with various scales and orientations. Vortex shedding and flow separation around the wheelset are the key factors for the aerodynamic noise generation. It is found that the radiated tonal noise corresponds to the dominant frequencies of the oscillating lift and drag forces from the wheelset. The directivity of the noise radiated exhibits a typical dipole pattern. As the inflow velocity increases, the shedding frequency scales with the freestream velocity and the axle diameter to yield a Strouhal number of 0.18 while the noise levels increase noticeably. For the current wheelset case investigated without considering the ground effect, the inclusion of wheelset rotation increases the radiated noise levels slightly with similar directivity.

Tentative Study on Performance of Darriues-Type Hydroturbine Operated in Small Open Water Channel

The development of small hydropower is one of the realistic and preferable utilizations of renewable energy, but the extra-low head hydropower less than 2 m is almost undeveloped yet for some reasons. The authors have developed several types of Darrieus-type hydro-turbine system, and among them, the Darrieus-turbine with a wear and a nozzle installed upstream of turbine is so far in success to obtain more output power, i.e. more shaft torque, by gathering all water into the turbine. However, there can several cases exist, in which installing the wear covering all the flow channel width is unrealistic. Then, in the present study, the hydraulic performances of Darrieus-type hydro-turbine with the inlet nozzle is investigated, putting alone in a small open channel without upstream wear. In the experiment, the five-bladed Darrieus-type runner with the pitch-circle diameter of 300 mm and the blade span of 300 mm is vertically installed in the open channel with the width of 1,200 mm. The effectiveness of the shape of the inlet nozzle is also examined using two types of two-dimensional symmetric nozzle, the straight line nozzle (SL nozzle) with the converging angle of 45 degrees and the half diameter curved nozzle (HD nozzle) whose radius is a half diameter of runner pitch circle. Inlet and outlet nozzle widths are in common for the both nozzles, which are 540 mm and 240 mm respectively. All the experiments are carried out under the conditions with constant flow rate and downstream water level, and performances are evaluated by measured output torque and the measured head difference between the water levels upstream and downstream of the turbine. As a result, it is found that the output power is remarkably increased by installing the inlet nozzle, and the turbine with SL nozzle produces larger power than that with HD nozzle. However, the peak efficiency is deteriorated in both cases. The speed ratio defined by the rotor speed divided by the downstream water velocity at the peak efficiency is larger in both cases with the inlet nozzle, partly due to the increase of inflow velocity into the turbine. In order to understand the cause of the differences of power, i.e. torque characteristics of the turbine with SL and HD nozzles, twodimensional CFD simulation is carried out. It is found that the instantaneous torque variation is important for the overall turbine performances, indicating the possibility of further performance improvement through the optimization of nozzle geometry.

Numerical Modeling of Flow Through Phloem Considering Active Loading

Transport through phloem is of significant interest in engineering applications, including self-powered microfluidic pumps. In this paper we present a phloem model, combining protein level mechanics with cellular level fluid transport. Fluid flow and sucrose transport through a petiole sieve tube are simulated using the Nernst–Planck, Navier–Stokes, and continuity equations. The governing equations are solved, using the finite volume method with collocated storage, for dynamically calculated boundary conditions. A sieve tube cell structure consisting of sieve plates is included in a two dimensional model by computational cell blocking. Sucrose transport is incorporated as a boundary condition through a six-state model, bringing in active loading mechanisms, taking into consideration their physical plant properties. The effects of reaction rates and leaf sucrose concentration are investigated to understand the transport mechanism in petiole sieve tubes. The numerical results show that increasing forward reactions of the proton sucrose transporter significantly promotes the pumping ability. A lower leaf sieve sucrose concentration results in a lower wall inflow velocity, but yields a higher inflow of water due to the active loading mechanism. The overall effect is a higher outflow velocity for the lower leaf sieve sucrose concentration because the increase in inflow velocity outweighs the wall velocity. This new phloem model provides new insights on mechanisms which are potentially useful for fluidic pumping in self-powered microfluidic pumps.

Particle image velocimetry and numerical simulations of the hydrodynamic characteristics of an artificial reef

This article reports a particle image velocimetry study and the comparative results of a numerical simulation into the hydrodynamic characteristics around an artificial reef. We reveal the process of flow separation and vortex evolution, and compare the force terms generated by our artificial reef model. The numerical simulation agrees well with experimental results, showing the applicability of computational fluid dynamics to the hydrodynamics of an artificial reef. Furthermore, we numerically simulate the hydrodynamics of the reef model for seven velocities. The results show that the drag coefficient is approximately 1.21 in a self-modeling region for Reynolds numbers between 2.123×104 and 9×104. Therefore, the upwelling height and current width of the flow field do not change significantly when the inflow velocity increases. Our study indicates that computational fluid dynamics can be applied to study the hydrodynamics of an artificial reef and offer clues to its construction.

PARAMETRIC STUDY OF PROPELLER TONE NOISE DUE TO NONUNIFORM FLOWS

This paper investigates the tone noise generation by submarine propellers operating in nonuniform flows. A frequency domain numerical approach is proposed. The flow nonuniformities due to submarine wakes are obtained from Computational Fluid Dynamics method. The results show that the velocity field and its harmonics depend greatly on the hull geometry and its appendages. The prediction of the radiated far-field tone noise due to a seven-bladed, highly-skewed propeller has been performed. A prediction of the acoustic pressure level for various blade skew angles shows that the tone noise reduction amount increases as the inflow velocity increases. The predicted dependence of the radiated noise on the inflow velocity, propeller diameter and blade rotational speed shows that the mean square sound pressure at the first-order blade passing frequency varies as the 3.3 power of the characteristic inflow velocity, the third power of the propeller diameter and with the second power of the blade rotational speed. Effects of blade number on the propeller tone noise directivity are also discussed, which shows that the characteristic coupling order between the main inflow harmonic and the rotating blades is the key to determine the directivity pattern.