Numerical investigation of blade tip vortex cavitation noise using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation and bubble dynamics model

In this study, the Eulerian/Lagrangian one-way coupling method is proposed to predict flow noise due to Blade-Tip Vortex Cavitation (BTVC). The proposed method consists of four sequential steps: flow field simulation using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques, reconstruction of wing-tip vortex using vortex model, generation of BTVC using bubble dynamics model and acoustic wave prediction using the acoustic analogy. Because the CFD prediction of tip vortex structure generally suffers from severe under-prediction of its strength along the steamwise direction due to the intrinsic numerical damping of CFD schemes and excessive turbulence intensity, the wing-tip vortex along the freestream direction is regenerated by using the vortex modeling. Then, the bubble dynamics model based on the Rayleigh-Plesset equation was employed to simulate the generation and variation of BTVC. Finally, the flow noise due to BTVC is predicted by modeling each of spherical bubbles as a monople source whose strength is proportional to the rate of time-variation of bubble volume. The validity of the proposed numerical methods is confirmed by comparing the predicted results with the measured data.