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Technologies for the Management of the Acoustic Signature of a Submarine

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The 5th Biennial SIA Conference 10-11 November 2010, Fremantle, Australia

Technologies for the Management of the

Acoustic Signature of a Submarine

Carl Q. Howard
School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

ABSTRACT
The stealth capability of a submarine differentiates it from other maritime platforms. The power plant for many sub-
marines exceeds 1 Mega-Watt and the technical challenge is to reduce its acoustic signature to unperceivable levels.
Novel vibration reduction technologies have been developed and tested at the University of Adelaide as part of a
DSTO Capability Technology Demonstrator program that can reduce significantly the vibration from a submarine
power-plant from reaching the hull, thereby reducing its acoustic signature. The noise radiated by the exhaust muffler
attached to the power-plant can also be attenuated significantly by utilising a novel adaptive muffler system. This
presentation will describe noise and vibration control technologies and methods that can be used to reduce the acous-
tic signature from a diesel engine power-plant.

INTRODUCTION
Exhaust
Submarines powered by diesel engines routinely surface to
operate their diesel engines which rotates an electrical gener-
Flow Noise
ator to recharge lead-acid battery banks. During this recharg-
Propellor
ing operation the diesel engines operate under high load so as
to recharge the batteries as quickly as possible. During the Auxillary Diesel Generators Drive
Machinery Engines Motor
operation of the diesel engines, significant acoustic noise is
generated within the submarine, and radiates from the subma-
rine via the engine exhaust. In addition, the vibration gener- Radiated
ated by the engine must be prevented from reaching the hull Noise
of the submarine to reduce its acoustic signature.

It is a significant engineering challenge to reduce the acoustic Figure 1: Noise generation mechanisms onboard a
signature of such large power plants to unperceivable levels submarine.
to remain undetectable. This paper describes some existing
The focus this paper is the noise and vibration control tech-
and emerging noise and vibration control technologies that
nologies applied to diesel engines to reduce the acoustic sig-
can be used to reduce the acoustic signature of a submarine
nature of a submarine.
from the diesel engine and other rotating equipment.
The diesel engines must be vibration isolated from the hull of
Figure 1 shows an illustration of some of noise generation
the submarine, to prevent the radiation of sound by the hull.
equipment onboard a submarine. The most significant of
It is unfortunate for submarines, that at the frequencies where
these is the diesel engine power-plant used to recharge the
diesel engines operate, the surrounding water provides little
lead-acid batteries. As an example, the Collins Class subma-
attenuation of sound with distance in a straight line, and the
rine contains 3 Garden Island-Hedemora HV (VB210) 18-
main mechanism for sound dissipation is the spreading of the
cylinder diesel motors, each with a power rating of approxi-
acoustic energy into the water. In addition to the diesel en-
mately 1.4 MW. Other noise generation mechanisms include
gines, other vibrating equipment such as the main generators,
flow induced noise of the water over the submarine exterior,
drive motor, and numerous pieces of auxiliary equipment
radiation by the propeller, operation of onboard machinery,
such as water pumps and pipe-work must also be vibration
noise generation from fluid flowing through pipes, operation
isolated from the hull. In the following section, three catego-
of valves and shutters, and others. Each noise generation
ries of vibration isolation systems for the diesel engines and
mechanism has associated with it noise control technologies.
other rotating equipment are described.
Another important noise control technology to reduce the
acoustic signature of a submarine is anechoic tiles that cover The diesel engines also generate high amplitude acoustic
the exterior of the submarine. These tiles are designed to noise during their operation that can be attenuated by an ex-
perform a dual function of absorbing incoming active sonar haust silencer. This paper describes three categories of ex-
pulses, and attenuate sound originating from the submarine.

1
haust silencers that can be used to attenuate the exhaust
noise.
VIBRATION ISOLATION OF A DIESEL ENGINE
The diesel engines in the Collins Class submarine are vibra-
tion isolated from the hull using a two-stage vibration isola-
tion system as shown in Figure 2.
Tuned Diesel Engine
Vibration Intermediate
Absorber Mass
Vibration
Isolators
Figure 2: Diesel engine and vibration isolator configuration
in the Collins Class submarine (from Li et al. 2004).
The two-stage vibration system comprises a heavy intermedi-
ate mass installed between upper and lower sets of vibration
isolators. This two-stage configuration can result in greater
vibration isolation than a single-stage configuration, although
the intermediate masses add significant weight.
As with all rotating equipment, including diesel engines,
vibration is often generated at a fundamental frequency and
harmonics. The vibration from the engine is attenuated by a
passive vibration isolation system and can be further im-
proved by the use of supplementary technology. The follow-
ing sections describe three categories of vibration isolation
systems namely: passive, active, and adaptive-passive.
Passive Vibration Isolation
The standard engineering practice is to use vibration isolators
to attenuate a vibration source (the diesel engine), from a
receiver (the submarine hull). There are various types of iso-
lators, but essentially they utilise an elastic spring element
such as a rubber block or metal spring.
The term „passive‟ is used because no additional energy is
injected into the isolation system to attenuate the vibration.
This is in contrast to „active‟ systems where vibrational ener-
gy is injected into the system, and is described in the follow-
ing section.
The design of these passive vibration isolation systems al-
ways involves a trade-off between the amount of vibration
reduction that can be achieved and the displacement of the
object that is to be isolated - greater vibration attenuation
requires low stiffness isolators, which results in potentially
large excursions of the object to be isolated. This poses addi-
tional problems as designers also need to meet the displace-
ment limits for shock loading in submarine applications.
Passive vibration isolation systems are extremely robust and
can provide consistent vibration isolation performance for
many years. The most common reason for the degradation of
performance is that the rubber material ages and can become
stiff, thereby increasing the resonance frequency of the sys-
tem and decreasing the vibration attenuation, or the rubber
material can start to de-bond and disintegrate.
2
Active Vibration Isolation Systems
Active vibration isolation systems involve the injection of
vibrational energy into the system in order to achieve vibra-
tion reduction or cancellation. Often active vibration isolation
systems are used in combination with passive vibration isola-
tion systems, so that should the active system fail, the passive
system will still provide some vibration attenuation.
All active vibration systems utilise a control actuator to coun-
ter-act the disturbing vibration. The control actuator can be
inserted into the isolation system in one of three methods as
shown in Figure 3: inertial, parallel, and series.
Inertial
Reaction
Mass
Control
Actuator
Machine Oscillating
Force
(a) Inertial
Machine Oscillating
Force
Control
Actuator
(b) Parallel
Machine Oscillating
Force
Control
Actuator
Intermediate
Mass
(c) Series
Figure 3: Three types of active vibration isolation systems:
(a) inertial (b) parallel (c) series.
The inertial type uses an inertial mass and shaker to create a
reaction force. The parallel type uses a control shaker placed
between the vibration source and the receiver. The series type
uses a control shaker placed between the vibration source and
an intermediate mass. The intermediate mass and its passive
isolator support are used to isolate the control actuator and
the vibration source from the dynamics of the flexible sup-
port structure, thus resulting in improved performance. The
parallel type of vibration isolator is able to exert greater forc-
es to the vibrating source and receiving structure, which
means greater vibration attenuation can be achieved at lower
frequencies than using the inertial type.
The School of Mechanical Engineering at The University of
Adelaide has investigated the use of active vibration isolation
on a simulated Collins Class submarine engine vibration
isolator (Li et al. 2004).
Figure 4 shows the experimental setup where a large rigid
mass was used to simulate a portion of the diesel engine, an
intermediate mass was installed between two sets of rubber
vibration isolators, and inertial electrodynamic vibration
shakers were attached to the intermediate mass orientated
vertically. The inertial shakers generated „anti-vibration‟ that
The 5th Biennial SIA Conference
cancelled the simulated vibrations from the diesel engine.
Accelerometers were attached to the intermediate mass that
were used to measure the vibration. An electronic controller
was used to determine the appropriate amplitude and phase of
anti-vibration required to cancel the disturbing vibration.
Recorded
vibration
Sensors
that detect Mass supported by
vibration one engine mount
Actuators
Intermediate
that generate
“anti-vibration” mass
Isolators
Figure 4: Active vibration isolation system.
The results from the experiments demonstrated that the active
vibration isolation system was able to reduce significantly the
vibration of the intermediate mass along the translational
vertical axis and two rotational axes, and therefore could
reduce the vibration transmitted into a submarine hull.
Although it was demonstrated that high levels of vibration
attenuation could be achieved in the laboratory, the practi-
calities of such a system need to be addressed such as the
robustness in the harsh submarine environment. The active
vibration isolation system comprises electrodynamic shakers
that have copper coil windings and a suspension system,
similar to that found in loudspeakers. These devices are re-
quired to generate high amplitude forces to counter-act the
forces generated by the diesel engines. It would be expected
that these shakers would operate for years with little mainte-
ance. The electrodynamic shakers operate most effectively at
room temperature. In addition to the shakers, a power ampli-
fier is required for each shaker, vibration sensors, and a con-
trol system is required to determine the appropriate anti-
vibration signals. Each two-stage mount would require such a
system, resulting in a complex system.
A marine engine diesel manufacturing company MTU Frie-
drichshafen has developed a combined passive and active
vibration isolation system for attenuating the vibration from
large marine diesel generators (von Drathen, 2010). The ac-
tive vibration isolation mount comprises three inertial elec-
trodynamic shakers orientated along three axes. Their results
indicate that significant vibration attenuation can be
achieved.
An alternative to the fully active vibration isolation system is
called an adaptive-passive system that utilises passive vibra-
tion isolation technology, but it can be tuned.
Adaptive Passive Vibration Isolation System
The two-stage vibration isolation system used on the Collins
Class submarine provides high levels of vibration attenuation
and operates over a broad frequency range. The two-stage
isolation is supplemented with fixed tuned vibration neutral-
10-11 November 2010, Fremantle, Australia
isers that provide additional attenuation at a fixed frequency.
These devices are illustrated in Figure 5 where masses on the
end of cantilever arms resonate and cause a reduction in the
vibration of the intermediate mass, and hence reduce the
vibration transmitted into the submarine hull. When these
devices are tuned precisely to the frequency of the disturbing
vibration, they can provide very high levels of vibration at-
tenuation.
However, one of the problems with the use of fixed tuned
vibration neutraliser is that if the frequency of the disturbing
vibration changes slightly, such as if the engine speed chang-
es, then the tuned vibration neutralisers become ineffective.
In conjunction with The Defence Science and Technology
Organisation, the School of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Adelaide developed an adaptive-passive tuned
vibration neutraliser, as shown in Figure 5, that can reduce
the vibration from the diesel engines from reaching the sub-
marine hull, thereby reducing the acoustic signature of the
submarine. The improvement in vibration attenuation is
achieved passively, as opposed to an active vibration control
system that requires electrically powered vibration shakers to
counter-act the vibration from the submarine engine. The
adaptive-passive system uses the same principle as the fixed
tuned vibration neutralisers, only it can be tuned to the fre-
quency of the disturbing vibration. The tuning is achieved by
adjusting the length of the cantilever arm, which alters the
effective stiffness and hence the resonance frequency of the
device.
The newly developed adaptive-passive vibration neutralisers
automatically tune itself to the frequency of vibration of the
diesel engine and can provide a significant reduction in the
vibration that reaches the hull. The system only requires low
power (12 volts) to operate a microcontroller and actuator.
The actuators only operate when the device needs to be re-
tuned by the automatic control system to match the frequency
of the submarine engine.
Laboratory tests were conducted on the device using a sim-
lated Collins Class engine vibration isolation system as the
test platform. It was demonstrated that the technology was
able to reduce significantly the vibration of the intermediate
mass.
Force Shaker
Transducer
Upper Mass
Rigid Mass
Accelerometers
Intermediate Base Block
Mass
Adaptive Tuned Cantilever Arms
Vibration
Neutralisers Separation
Vibration Isolators
Distance
Ground
Figure 5: Schematic of the adaptive-passive tuned vibration
neutraliser.
Discussion
The three types of vibration isolation systems described here
are all capable of providing high levels of attenuation when
they are designed correctly. The design of the vibration isola-
3
tion system using only passive (non-adaptive) techniques is
always a compromise between the amount of vibration isola-
tion, the allowable excursion, weight and space in the case of
two-stage isolation. Fully active vibration systems can vastly
improve the vibration attenuation but there will be reliability
issues of the actuators that need to be addressed. Adaptive-
passive vibration isolation systems can offer the robustness of
standard passive vibration isolation, and only require low
power to adjust its vibration characteristics. As these systems
can be automatically tuned to the frequency of the disturbing
vibration, they can provide very high levels of vibration at-
tenuation of tonal vibration. The drawback of adaptive pas-
sive systems is that they can only attenuate one frequency of
vibration per resonator, whereas a fully active vibration isola-
tion system is capable of attenuating broadband and harmonic
frequencies.
EXHAUST SILENCERS
The diesel engine power-plant on a conventional submarine
generates a significant amount of noise. It is important that
this noise is attenuated if it is to remain undetected. However
this is a significant engineering challenge.
In a standard design of a conventional submarine, the diesel
engine is installed near the rear of the vessel and the exhaust
pipe-work passes through the pressure hull, up the fin (or
conning tower) and into a retractable mast that can be ex-
tended during snort operations. As with all components on
the submarine, space and weight are very limited. An exhaust
silencer is installed along the pipework, usually close to the
diesel engine. This device acts to attenuate the noise that is
transmitted through the exhaust pipework, and hence it is
beneficial to place the device as close to the engine as possi-
ble, rather than at the end of the ductwork as occurs in most
automotive applications.
There are three broad categories of exhaust silencers namely:
passive, active, and adaptive-passive. Each of these catego-
ries is described below in the following sections.
Passive Silencer
Passive exhaust silencers are the most common type of si-
lencer. They are installed in almost every automotive applica-
tion, diesel engine generator sets, industrial applications that
utilise large exhaust fans such as power stations, cement fac-
tories, dry milk powder factories, glass bottle manufacturing,
etc. The term „passive‟ is used because the silencers are de-
signed to absorb and or „reflect‟ acoustic energy, so that no
additional energy sources are required for them to operate.
This is in contrast to Active Noise Control (ANC) silencers
described in the next section. Passive silencers are extremely
robust and can have a useful working life for over a decade.
Problems occur when the exhaust contains particulates that
can clog the porous material that is used to absorb the sound
energy. For example in some coal fired power stations and
cement manufacturing facilities, silencers that contain porous
materials might only last 6 months. In these cases an alterna-
tive design configuration can be used, where instead of using
porous materials to absorb sound, hard walled acoustic vol-
umes are installed that act to reflect sound towards the source
(Howard et al. 2000). As porous materials are not used, the
performance of the device does not degrade over time. Tech-
nically, it changes the acoustic impedance of the acoustic
duct so that sound does not propagate past the silencer. These
resonator silencers are passive devices that provide high lev-
els of acoustic attenuation at a single frequency or harmonic
frequencies and do not require any power.
4
One common type of resonator silencer designs is a side-
branch resonator, shown in Figure 6. Side-branch resonators
have two common designs namely quarter-wave tubes and
Helmholtz resonators.
Figure 6: Type of resonator silencers. From Beranek, L.L.
and Ver, I.L. (1992).
These passive acoustic devices can attenuate tonal noise by
more than 30dB when they are properly tuned to the frequen-
cy of the disturbing noise. However, when the frequency of
the noise changes, or the temperature of the gas changes, a
single device will become ineffective. However, by using
multiple resonator devices tuned to different frequencies, it is
possible to create a silencer that attenuates noise over a fre-
quency range.
Active Noise Control Silencer
The previous section described the conventional „passive‟
method of attenuating noise from exhausts, where noise is
absorbed by porous materials, and or „reflected‟ by carefully
designed acoustic components.
It is also possible to achieve noise reduction using „active‟
means, where a cancellation or „anti-noise‟ is introduced
into the exhaust pipe. The term „active‟ is used because
energy is intentionally introduced into the system that acts
to cancel the exhaust noise. A simplified system diagram is
shown in Figure 7. The exhaust noise will propagate along
the exhaust duct and will reach a loudspeaker that injects a
noise that is equal in magnitude but 180 degrees out-of-
phase with the exhaust noise. When these two acoustic
pressures combine, the result is that the noise is cancelled.
The resulting noise is measured by a microphone and this
signal is used by an electronic controller that determines the
appropriate anti-noise signal that is required. This type of
system is called a feed-back arrangement and is commonly
used on consumer active noise cancellation headsets. This
description is intentionally simplified and some details are
omitted for clarity, however the key concepts are conveyed.
Another variant of this loudspeaker type active noise control
system is where the controller utilises a feed-forward control
structure. For this type of control system it is necessary to
obtain a signal that is related to the unwanted engine noise
before it reaches the loudspeaker. This could be either an
upstream microphone that measures the actual unwanted
noise in the exhaust stream, or alternatively a tachometer
signal can be used to generate a sinusoidal signal that is relat-
ed to the unwanted tonal exhaust noise. It is also possible to
create a combination of both feed-back and feed-forward
control architectures.
These types of active noise exhaust silencers that utilise loud-
speakers have been developed, tested, and shown some po-
tential. For example, Everett et al. (1991) demonstrated this
concept on a Detroit Diesel 6V-92TA industrial diesel engine
used in a generator set application and achieved 13dB noise
reduction greater than a conventional passive muffler.
The 5th Biennial SIA Conference
Exhaust noise Loudspeaker introduces
and air-flow anti-noise
+ =
Microphone
Electronic
controller
Figure 7: Simple feedback noise control system acting as an
exhaust silencer.
Recently a company called Eberspächer developed an active
muffler for automotive applications using a loudspeaker con-
figuration (Kruger, 2009). They demonstrated noise reduction
of around 0-8dBA with varying degrees of attenuation.
The Acoustic Vibration and Control group at the University
of Adelaide has installed an active noise control system in a
large exhaust stack at a cement manufacturing factory (Han-
sen et al. 1996), and also a dry milk powder factory. In both
cases, these systems were able to reduce significantly the
tonal noise from the factories. The measured noise reduction
of the tones generated by the large exhaust fans was about
20dB.
Many journal and conference papers about active noise con-
trol systems will highlight the significant noise reductions
achieved. This often leaves the reader to ponder why active
noise control systems are not more widely installed. Unfortu-
nately, authors neglect to note some of the practical difficul-
ties of the systems and their robustness.
The author makes the following comments from the practical
experience of the ANC system in a cement factory. However,
the comments are relevant to other applications in adverse
environments.
Active noise control of exhausts that utilise loudspeakers to
generate anti-noise have reliability issues. The loudspeakers
can be exposed to extreme temperature ranges from 0C up to
700C of the exhaust gas, whereas most loudspeakers are de-
signed to operate at room temperature. Exhaust gas streams
can contain corrosive and abrasive contaminants and hence
when a loudspeaker is installed in an exhaust duct, it must be
protected from the adverse conditions by an artificial room
temperature environment, free from contaminants. Figure 8
shows an installation of an active noise control system per-
formed by the University of Adelaide‟s Acoustic Vibration
and Control group in a dry milk powder factory. Hot exhaust
air travels upwards through the duct. A conventional con-
sumer loudspeaker was attached to the exhaust duct inside a
protective container. Cooling air must flow through the loud-
speaker container to maintain it at room temperature. There is
significant heat load on the loudspeaker from the exhaust
gases, and also the loudspeaker is required to operate at high
electrical power levels which also generates heat.
10-11 November 2010, Fremantle, Australia
Loudspeaker container
Exhaust
Airflow
Cooling Air
Figure 8: Active noise control installation in a dry milk
powder factory.
An alternative configuration to using a loudspeaker attached
to the duct was presented by Boonen and Sas (1999) that
utilised a butterfly valve that rotates back-and-forth within
the exhaust pipe, as shown in Figure 9. The concept was
demonstrated on a „cold-engine‟ simulator.
Exhaust noise
and air-flow
Butterfly valve
Figure 9: Active exhaust silencer utilising a rotating butter-
fly valve.
In their laboratory experiments using their cold-engine simu-
lator, they demonstrated a 13dB noise reduction with only a
3kPa increase in back-pressure.
As with loudspeaker type active noise control systems, this
butterfly valve configuration utilises a continuously moving
element that must withstand the harsh temperatures and ex-
haust gas contaminants, which presents robustness issues.
Adaptive Passive Exhaust Silencer
Another technology for exhaust silencers is called an adap-
tive-passive resonator silencer. The term adaptive means that
the silencer is capable of re-tuning itself to the frequency of
the disturbing noise, thereby maintaining acoustic attenuation
for changes in the frequency of the disturbing noise. This can
be achieved by designing the device so that the length of the
tube (length L in Figure 6) can be altered, which has the ef-
fect of altering the resonance frequency of the resonator.
The term passive means that no additional power is required
to reduce the acoustic noise. As they are passive devices, they
cannot become „unstable‟, which is a possibility with an ac-
tive noise control system. The only power source required is
a low-voltage supply to power a micro-processor and acous-
tic sensors (typically a couple of Watts) and an actuator to
change the length of a tube in the resonator silencer.
5
The following section describes the features of the quarter-
wave tube resonator silencer.
Quarter-Wave Tube Resonator Silencer
The side-branch resonator shown in Figure 6 can be attached
to an engine exhaust system using a flange. Note that the side
branch does not have to be perpendicular to the main duct,
and could be installed parallel to the existing exhaust system
as shown in Figure 10. The „backwards‟ orientation of the
silencer is important to reduce flow induced noise, to prevent
the side branch from „singing‟.
Side-Branch
Resonator
Piston
Exhaust Low Noise Exhaust
Noise
Duct
Figure 10: Schematic of the attachment of an adaptive-
passive side-branch resonator silencer to an exhaust duct.
The quarter-wave tube type of resonator silencer provides
noise attenuation at odd multiples of the fundamental reso-
nance frequency. This means that the device will attenuate
noise at a fundamental frequency and its harmonics, which is
a very desirable feature for attenuating the noise from a diesel
engine.
Figure 11 shows the transmission loss in decibels of this type
of resonator silencer, where k = 2πf / c is the wavenumber, f
is the frequency in Hertz, c is the speed of sound of the gas in
m/s, L is the length of the quarter-wave tube, S1 is the cross
sectional area of the main exhaust duct, S2 is the cross sec-
tional area of the side-branch, and N = S2 / S1 is the ratio of
the cross-sectional areas of the side-branch to the main duct.
Figure 11 shows that greater attenuation is achieved as this
ratio N increases.
Figure 11: Transmission loss for a side-branch resonator
(quarter-wave tube). From Beranek, L.L. and Ver, I.L.
(1992).
An adaptive quarter-wave tube resonator silencer can be used
to reduce significantly the tonal noise from the exhaust sys-
tem. This can be realised by varying the length of the quarter-
wave tube using a piston. Acoustic sensors are required to
measure the noise level and frequency within the exhaust
duct and these signals are provided to an automatic control
system that tunes the adaptive quarter-wave tube resonator
silencer.
6
There are other variants of this type of adaptive passive si-
lencers such as a variable Helmholtz resonator, and an Adap-
tive Herschel-Quincke Tube.
Helmholtz Resonator
A Helmholtz resonator is a passive noise control technology
that comprises a sealed cavity volume attached to the main
exhaust duct with a narrower neck, as shown in Figure 12.
The device can be tuned to the frequency of the tonal noise
by altering the geometry of the volume or neck. Figure 12
shows an adaptive-passive configuration where the volume
can be altered by changing the position of a piston. This has
the effect of changing the resonance frequency of the device,
and can be integrated into a control system to attenuate the
noise in the exhaust duct.
Piston
Volume
Neck
Exhaust Low Noise Exhaust
Noise Duct
Figure 12: Schematic of a Helmholtz resonator.
Herschel-Quincke Tube
A Hershel-Quincke tube comprises a side branch attached to
a main duct as shown in Figure 13, where the acoustic energy
from the main duct is directed into a side branch and propa-
gates over longer path, then recombines with the main duct.
Side-Branch
Resonator
Exhaust Low Noise Exhaust
Noise Duct
Figure 13: Typical Hershel-Quincke tube.
The length of the tube is selected such that the resulting
phase angle of the noise is opposite to that of the noise in the
main duct, and hence the sound is attenuated when the noise
sources from the two branches are recombined. An attractive
feature of the Herschel-Quincke Tube is its simple design and
that it will attenuate sound at multiple frequencies. This de-
vice can also be configured as an adaptive passive silencer,
where the length of the side branch is altered (Byrne and
Moe, 2006), or a variable membrane can be inserted into the
side branch that alters its acoustic impedance (Griffin et al.
1999).
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has described technologies for the management of
the acoustic signature of a submarine‟s diesel engine, which
is perhaps the noisiest piece of machinery onboard. It is a
significant engineering challenge to attenuate the acoustic
noise and vibration generated by the diesel engines from
reaching the submarine hull, where unfortunately underwater
sound propagates effectively. Three types of technology have
 The 5th Biennial SIA Conference 10-11 November 2010, Fremantle, Australia

been discussed for amelioration of noise and vibration name-
ly passive, active, and adaptive-passive. Passive noise and
vibration control technologies provide adequate attenuation
when designed properly. This technology provides consistent
results and can be designed to be robust to harsh operating
environments. The attenuation offered by this technology can
be further improved by utilising other technologies. Active
noise and vibration control technology can provide very high
levels of attenuation however the actuators used in these
systems must be extremely reliable and robust to their harsh
operating environment. The actuators for active control tech-
nologies must continually operate in order to provide attenua-
tion and this presents reliability issues. Adaptive-passive
technologies can offer the benefit of the robustness of passive
technology in operating in harsh environments, and when
tuned properly can provide high levels of attenuation. These
adaptive passive devices also require actuators to tune, but
they only operate intermittently and hence have less risk of
failure than an active control system.
Howard, C.Q., Cazzolato, B.S. and Hansen, C.H. (2000),
“Exhaust stack silencer design using finite element analysis”,
Noise Control Engineering Journal, 48 (4), p113-120.
Kruger, J. (2009), “Silence is golden: Active exhaust silenc-
ers in vehicles”, dSpace Magazine, March, p28-33.
Li, X., Howard, C.Q., Hansen, C.H., Winberg, M. (2004),
“Feasibility of Active Vibration Isolation of Diesel Engines
in Collins Class Submarines”, Navy Engineering Bulletin,
March, p25-26.
Von Drathen, Arndt (2010), “Propulsion system solutions for
present and future naval vessels”, presented at Pacific 2010,
Sydney Australia, 27-29 January 2010.

Passive technologies will always be utilised to control noise

and vibration. However the demand for ensuring the stealth
capability of a submarine means that designers will always be
looking for technological advancements to achieve greater
attenuation of noise and vibration, and this is where active
and adaptive-passive technologies have potential.

REFERENCES
Beranek, L.L. and Ver, I.L. (1992), “Noise and vibration
control engineering: principles and applications”, John Wiley
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Boonen, R. and Sas, P., (1999) “Development of An Active

Exhaust Silencer for Internal Combustion Engines Using
Feedback Control”, Proceedings of the Society of Automo-
tive Engineers, Noise & Vibration Conference & Exposition,
May 1999, Traverse City, MI, USA, Paper Number: 1999-01-
1844.

Byrne, Stuart J, and Moe, Jeffrey, W. (2006), “Assembly and

Method for Fan Noise Reduction from Turbofan Engines
Using Dynamically Adaptive Herschel-Quincke Tubes” Eu-
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