Numerical Simulation of Hydrodynamic Noises during Bubble Rising Process

Abstract

Noise analysis is one of the most efficient and newest methods to investigate dynamic behaviors of any system. In this study, hydrodynamic noises of a single bubble are scrutinized by applying Curle's acoustic analogy as implemented in OpenFoam® v2012. Meanwhile, a new solver (interAcousticFoam) is developed to hydroacoustically evaluate the noise sources. A three-dimensional transient incompressible two-phase flow model is simulated based on the hybrid method (the volume of fluid (VOF) method and Curle’s analogy method) to predict the acoustic emission characteristics of the single bubble. The pressure fluctuations are measured by adding the scale adaptive simulation (SAS) concept to the unsteady reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulation, which resulted in precise extraction of the flow fluctuations and thus the accurate simulation of the acoustic pressure fluctuations is achieved. Additionally, the analysis of the noise production mechanism is developed by implementing the Acoustic Perturbation Equations (APE) in the new solver. An alternative version of the acoustic technique is proposed to estimate the acoustic pressure fluctuations during the bubble rising process at an orifice submerged in water. The dynamic responses and the time–frequency analyses of the bubble indicate that the numerical simulation covers the main features of the principal acoustic components and can successfully predict the natural frequency of the bubble’s dynamic behaviors.