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Flow-Induced Pulsations in Pipe Systems With Closed Side Branches: Study of The Effectiveness of Detuning As Remedial Measure
Flow-Induced Pulsations in Pipe Systems With Closed Side Branches: Study of The Effectiveness of Detuning As Remedial Measure
ABSTRACT
Flow-induced pulsations in resonant pipe systems with two closed side branches in cross configuration are considered.
These pulsations, commonly observed in many technical applications, are self-sustained aeroacoustic oscillations driven
by the instability of the flow along the closed branches. Detuning of the acoustic resonator is often considered as a
possible remedial measure. Although this countermeasure appears to be very effective for double side branch systems
in cross configuration with anechoic boundary conditions of the main pipe, its effectiveness has not been assessed for
different boundary conditions. The significance of the acoustic boundary conditions of the main pipe has been studied by
means of experiments conduced on double side branch systems presenting two acoustically reflecting boundaries of the
main pipe. While pulsations are often a nuisance, the double side branch system can also be used as a powerful sound
source.
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2327 August 2010, Sydney, Australia Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, ICA 2010
FLOW-INDUCED PULSATIONS
Moderate amplitude flow-induced pulsations are observed in
the configuration Conf-c1 when air is blown through this pipe
system. In Figure 2 the measured dimensionless pulsation fre-
quency HeL = f Lsb /c0 and dimensionless pulsation amplitude
|p0 |/ (0 c0U) are presented as function of the Mach number
M = U/c0 of the main flow. These measurements have been
conducted by monotonically increasing the flow velocity U.
The dimensionless frequency corresponds to the Helmholtz
number based on the pulsation frequency f, the length of the
side branches Lsb and the speed of sound c0 . The dimensionless
pulsation amplitude corresponds to the pressure amplitude |p0 |
divided by the product 0 c0U of the characteristic impedance
0 c0 of the fluid (0 is the fluid density) with the main flow ve-
locity U. In the particular case of a resonant closed branch, the
dimensionless pulsation amplitude at the closed branch termi-
Figure 1: Experimental setup. nation (i.e. a pressure antinode in the closed branch resonator)
corresponds to the ratio |~u0jun |/U of the acoustic velocity am-
plitude |~u0jun | at the sound source with the steady main flow
a compressor, a 3 m3 vessel filled with air at 15 bar, a control velocity U.
valve to regulate the flow through the system, an intermediate
cylindrical buffer vessel of 1.23 m length and 200 mm diameter,
a 2.3 m long pipe of 100 mm diameter, a turbine flow meter, a
1.1 m long pipe of 100 mm diameter and an expansion chamber
muffler with diameter Dm = 150 mm and length Lm = 930 mm.
Half of the muffler is internally covered with sound absorbing
(open cell) foam in order to avoid cavity resonances. The side
branch system is connected to the muffler by a smooth contrac-
tion with a radius of curvature of Dmp /3, which avoids flow
separation at the main pipe inlet.
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Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, ICA 2010 2327 August 2010, Sydney, Australia
~ = ~u is the vorticity,
where ~u is the local fluid velocity,
~u0 is the acoustic velocity, V is the volume in which ~ is not
vanishing and the brackets h. . .i indicate the time averaging.
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2327 August 2010, Sydney, Australia Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, ICA 2010
Conf-c7/c8. This is due to the saturation of the sources of sound prising result can be understood by observing the pulsation be-
and to the radiation losses caused by the generation of higher havior of the second higher (non-trapped) harmonic HeL 0.5,
harmonics [18-20] that appear at very-high amplitudes. presented in Figure 5-b. In the case of configuration Conf-da1
the amplitude of this second harmonic is 7% of the amplitude
of the fundamental, while in configuration Conf-db1 it is 20%
of the amplitude of the fundamental. The radiation losses due
to the non-linear wave steepening are higher for configuration
Conf-db1 than for configuration Conf-da1 and this results in
a significant decrease of pulsation amplitude. Since the only
distinction between the two configurations is the difference in
the length of the upstream main pipe, the acoustic properties of
this section are responsible for the increased transfer of energy
by non-linear radiation losses. In particular we expect that in
Conf-db1 this is promoted by the fact that the second higher har-
monic HeL 0.5 has a frequency that matches the resonance
condition of the system composed by the two side branches and
the inlet main pipe: (Lsb + Lin + in ) / 2.16.
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Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics, ICA 2010 2327 August 2010, Sydney, Australia
the radiation of acoustic power by generation of plane waves properties of the pipe systems play a significant role, scale mod-
in the main pipe. Although this countermeasure can be very els aiming at the prediction of pulsations should have realistic
effective for a double side branch system in cross configuration acoustic boundary conditions.
with anechoic boundary conditions of the main pipe [21, 22],
its effectiveness has not been assessed for different boundary A double side branch system in cross configuration can be used
conditions. There are examples [16] in which the acoustic prop- as a powerful sound source, able to produce and radiate a wide
erties of the pipes upstream and downstream of a closed branch range of frequencies with a wide range of acoustic amplitudes.
system strongly influence the aeroacoustic behavior of the sys-
tem. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The significance of the acoustic boundary conditions of the This work is being sponsored by European Commission Marie
main pipe on the effectiveness of detuning is assessed in our Curie RTN Project AETHER (contract nbr MRTN-CT-2006-
work by means of experiments (Figure 6) on configurations 035713). The authors wish to thank F. M. R. van Uittert for his
presenting two acoustically reflecting boundaries of the main contributions to the development of the experiments.
pipe, Conf-da1/da5. In presence of anechoic boundaries, a 10%
of detuning of the side branch length was sufficient to decrease REFERENCES
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