Conceptual Design of the Flow Noise Simulator
The Flow Noise Simulator (FNS) of the 1st Research Center of TRDI/JDA (Japan Defense Agency) is a large, variable pressure, recirculating water tunnel with very low background noise level. The tunnel is 20m high and 49m long, containing 2000m3 of water. The test section has a square cross section of 2m × 2m with 10m in length. It will accept large size surface ship models of 6m, submarine models of 4m in length and full scale ship appendix models. The FNS is currently under construction and will be accomplished in 2005. It will be used for a wide variety of hydrodynamic and hydroacoustic testing of surface ships and submarines, such as propeller cavitation noise measurements and propeller-hull interaction observation, with sufficiently large scale models. Conceptual design of the FNS was started in 1996 and evaluated by following scale model studies. This paper discusses some technical issues of the FNS.