Cavitation Tunnel Acoustic Characterisation and Application to Model Propeller Radiated Noise Measurements at Different Functioning Conditions

In present work, an acoustic characterisation of the University of Genoa cavitation tunnel is presented, with the aim to obtain suitable transfer functions in order to take into account (at least partially) the effects of the confined environment, particularly important for small-scale facility like the one considered. The acoustic characterisation is performed considering two hydrophones in significantly different positions (inside the tunnel and in an external tank), typical, for different reasons, of noise measurements in cavitation tunnel; the procedure is based on the logarithmic sine sweep signal. The obtained transfer functions have been applied to a series of measurements of model propellers in correspondence to considerably different functioning conditions, in terms of cavitation number and propeller loading, showing the applicability of the procedure and the improvement of the measurement quality, in view of predictions in full scale.