Article

Journal of Vibration and Control

2024, Vol. 30(11-12) 2728–2741

Vibro-acoustic characteristics of © The Author(s) 2023

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a submarine model excited by excitation DOI: 10.1177/10775463231185179
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forces of pump-jet duct
Junyue Zhang1, Huiyao Li1, and Hongxing Hua1,2

Abstract
The vibro-acoustic responses of coupled pump-jet-submarine systems excited by fluid excitations on the wall of the duct are
numerically investigated. The unsteady excitations are calculated by computational fluid dynamics and the vibration responses for
different excitations on the inner and outer walls are contrastively analyzed through establishing a finite element model of the
coupled system. Meanwhile, the effect of fluid–structure interaction and the excitation loading methods for the inner flow of duct
are considered. The sound radiation characteristics for different excitation sources are predicted through using a boundary
element model. The results show that the excitation force spectra of the inner wall have a remarkable discrete peak at blade
passing frequency and its multiple, while the excitation force spectra of the outer wall show a broadband characteristic and
discrete components appear at blade passing frequency. The modes of hull both dominate the vibro-acoustic responses of the
coupled system for different excitation sources of the duct. The transmitted energy for inner excitation forces is significantly
greater than that of outer excitation forces, but the sound radiation efficiency is relatively close. The excitations of the duct can
transfer to the thrust bearing through stators as well as the hull and cause a coupled vibration between the duct–stator–hull and
the shafting system. Besides, the method for applying distributed forces on the inner wall is more reliable.

Keywords
Pump-jet, flow-induced vibration, random vibration, FEM/BEM

1. Introduction Aiming at revealing vibro-acoustic characteristics for the

The acoustic stealth performance is an important tactical and
technique index for military ships, so how to reduce the
radiated noise has always been an attractive topic in ship
propulsion research. Generally, the propulsor is one of the
principal sources of noise. In the past decades, pump-jet has
become one of the main propulsor types for underwater
vehicles. The stators installed upstream of the rotor can yield
a pre-swirling inflow for rotors, while the duct can improve
cavitation and hydrodynamic performances (Abu Sharkh,
2004). Compared with traditional propulsors, pump-jet has
more complex mechanical characteristics, such as interaction
between rotors and stators, leakage vortices of rotor blade tip,
surface forces distributed on the inner wall of the duct and
turbulent boundary layer (TBL) pressure fluctuations dis-
tributed on the outer wall. The series of problems not only
produce direct sound radiation but also cause coupled vibro-
acoustic responses excited by multiple excitation paths, such
as pump-jet–shafting system–hull and duct–stator–hull.
Therefore, it is very important to investigate the character-
istics of different excitation forces as well as vibration
transmission paths for the low-noise design of the pump-jet.
transmission path of duct–stator–hull, this paper systemati-
cally investigates the excitation force of the duct, and
summarizes the vibro-acoustic characteristics for different
types of excitation forces.
The hydrodynamic performance of pump-jet has made
great progress by using appropriate numerical calculation
models, such as Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes
(RANS) and large eddy simulation (LES) (Shi et al.,
2022; Yu et al., 2020). Peng et al. (2022) compared the
1
Fundamental Science on Vibration, Shock and Noise Laboratory, State Key
Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Shanghai, China
2
National Engineering Research Center of Special Equipment and Power
System for Ship and Marine Engineering, Shanghai, China
Received: 16 February 2023; revised: 15 May 2023; accepted: 9 June 2023
Corresponding author:
Junyue Zhang, Fundamental Science on Vibration, Shock and Noise
Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Mechanical System and Vibration,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
Email: Junyue_Zhang@sjtu.edu.cn
Zhang et al.
flow flied characteristic for various inflow angles to in-
vestigate the hydrodynamic performance of pump-jet in the
wake of submarines under an oblique sailing condition.
Besides, related research studies have also been concerned
by other scholars through numerical simulations or ex-
periments (Li et al., 2022; Li et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2020;
Pan et al., 2015; Qin et al., 2021; Qiu et al., 2020; Sun et al.,
2019; Weng et al., 2022; Zhao et al., 2022). The above
series of studies mainly include open water performance,
characteristics of excitation forces, cavitation performances,
the influence of tip clearance on hydrodynamic character-
istics, and evolution mechanisms of vortices among stator–
rotor–duct. The results show that the pump-jet has excellent
propulsion efficiency and cavitation performance compared
with traditional propellers. However, it has also caused
many new problems due to the complex structure, for
example, the strong rotor–stator interference may cause an
undesirable fluid-induced vibration as well as noise and
unreasonable tip clearance will lead to the increase of
pressure fluctuation amplitude. Current problems have not
been overcome and restrict the low-noise design of the
pump-jet.
There will be a strong interaction between pump-jet and
fluid because pump-jet runs in the stern turbulent zone.
Based on this, the pump-jet will produce a direct sound
radiation into the far field and also act as an excitation
source to cause a coupled vibro-acoustic response of the
pump-jet–hull. There are multiple paths of vibration
transmission, of which the source and amplitude of exci-
tation forces, and vibro-acoustic characteristics produced by
each path are significantly different. According to the
published papers, there are few researches about the vibro-
acoustic responses of pump-jet–hull. For the case of pro-
pellers, various dynamic models of propeller–-shafting
system are established through an analytical or semi-
analytical dynamic method to study the vibration trans-
mission (Liu et al., 2017; Qu et al., 2017; Song et al., 2014).
The principal results show the response amplitude of the
propeller–shafting system under the excitation with dif-
ferent directions and the importance of bearings in force
transmission as well as vibration control. The influence of
propeller flexibility is particularly emphasized in relevant
research studies (Chen et al., 2017; Huang et al., 2018; Tian
et al., 2017). Based on the three-dimensional sono-elasticity
method, Qi et al. (2019) established a coupled model of
propeller–shafting–hull to analyze the vibration response as
well as acoustic radiation and the local resonance of the
propeller is highly considered. Research studies on the

  
∂ðρkÞ ∂ ρuj k ∂ ∂k
þ ¼ ðμ þ σ k μt Þ þ Pk 
∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj

  
∂ðρωÞ ∂ ρuj ω ∂ ∂ω
þ ¼ ðμ þ σ ω μt Þ
∂t ∂xj ∂xj ∂xj
2729
propeller–shafting/propeller–shafting–hull have been con-
ducted (Lin et al., 2020, 2023; Qi et al., 2016; Zou et al.,
2017). Moreover, Zou et al. (2023) proposed a semi-
analytical acoustic–vibration interaction method to in-
vestigate the vibro-acoustic responses from a locally
damped cylindrical shell immersed in water and proposed
noise reduction measures. It can provide a reference for the
low-noise design of submarine structures. For the con-
cerned pump-jet, Su et al. (2021) simulated the unsteady
excitation forces of pump-jet by computational fluid dy-
namics (CFD) and highlighted the contributions of different
excitation forces to sound radiation by finite element model
(FEM) and boundary element model (BEM). It is shown
that the contribution of the distributed forces on rotors is
dominant. Huang et al. (2022) investigated the hydrody-
namic performance of a pump-jet without tip clearance,
modal characteristics, and vibro-acoustic responses of
coupled pump-jet–SUBOFF system, which were verified
with experimental results in a cavitation tunnel. It is shown
that the sound radiation power level is evidently reduced
after eliminating the tip clearance.
Aiming at overcoming the problems highlighted above,
the vibro-acoustic responses of a scaled pump-jet–sub-
marine hull model are numerically investigated. The un-
steady excitations on the duct wall are calculated in the
software FLUENT (version 19.0). For the excitation force
with different excitation sources, the steady-state and
random responses are analyzed, respectively, in ABAQUS
(version 6.14-2) through establishing the FEM of the
coupled pump-jet–submarine model. The sound power
level and sound pressure distributions on the boundary of
the hull are predicted in LMS Virtual.Lab (version 13.6) by
BEM to report the acoustic radiation characteristics.
2. Model formulation
2.1 Detached eddy simulation
The detached eddy simulation (DES) is a hybrid mod-
eling approach, which, respectively, uses the RANS and
LES formulation to simulate the attached boundary layers
and the rest of flow, such as separated regions. It can
significantly reduce the computational resource for the
three-dimensional dynamics of high Reynolds number
wall-bounded flows. The DES based on shear-stress
transport (SST) k-ω model is chosen in this paper. The
governing equations (Gritskevich et al., 2012) are given
as follows:
ρk 3=2
lDDES
(1)
ρσ ω2 ∂k ∂ω ρ
þ 2ð1  F1 Þ þ α Pk  βρω2
ω ∂xj ∂xj μt
2730 Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)

Table 1. Parameters of SUBOFF and pump-jet.

Maximum diameter
Length (L) (D) Forebody length Midbody length Afterbody length
SUBOFF
model 4356 mm 508 mm 1016 mm 2228.85 mm 1111.15 mm
Duct Length Leading edge radius Trailing edge radius (RTE) Leading edge position _____
(RLE)
228 mm 145 mm 103 mm 3939.43 mm
Stator Stators Length Leading edge connection Trailing edge connection Leading edge position/
number (R’LE) (R’TE) chord
9 76 mm 121 mm 106 mm 0.25
Rotor Blades Rotor diameter Tip clearance Rotor disk position Blade section
number
7 210 mm 2 mm 4196.42 mm NACA66 (modified)

where t, ρ, u, μ denote time, density, velocity, and dy-
namic viscosity, respectively; subscripts i and j are the
spatial coordinates directions; Pk ¼ μt S 2 , where S is the
magnitude of the strain-rate tensor; and coefficients
α, β, σ k , σ ω , μt and blending function F1 can be introduced
in detail (Gritskevich et al., 2012).
Besides, the definition of the length scale is
lDDES ¼ lRANS  fd maxf0, lRANS  lLES g, where lRANS is the
mass matrix, stiffness matrix of the acoustic medium, and
fluid–structure coupling matrix. All matrices are com-
posed of the element attributes of FEM. The vibration
responses on the structural surface are obtained by
equation (2).
The radiated pressure on the hull and field points is
obtained by directed BEM (Huang et al., 2022):
where m, n are the number of field points and surface nodes;

!
XX X XX
akij pik  4π þ ekij pj ¼ bkij uik , ð j ¼ 1; 2, ::::::, nÞ structural surface
i¼1 k
XX XX
i¼1 i¼1 k (3)
4πpj ¼ akij pik  bkij uik , ð j ¼ 1; 2, ::::::, mÞ field points
i¼1 k i¼1 k

RANS length scale, lLES is the LES length scale, and fd k is the node index of element on the structural boundary;
refers to delayed function. Therefore, if the grid is fine uik is the velocity response on structural surface; akij , bkij , ekij
enough, it will emulate a basic LES subgrid scale model in are the BEM coefficients; and pj is the pressure.
detached flow regions. Z
1

W ¼ Re pj uk i dS (4)
2
2.2 Coupled FEM and direct BEM to S

vibro-acoustic responses
The concerned radiated sound power can be obtained by
The vibration responses and acoustic radiation of coupled equation (4). S is the enclosed surface of the structure and 
pump-jet–SUBOFF are calculated by FEM and BEM, denotes the conjugate complex.
where BEM is based on the vibration velocity of the hull
surface calculated by FEM. The dynamic equation is given
as (Zienkiewicz and Taylor, 2013) 3. Unsteady hydrodynamics of pump-jet–
" # SUBOFF
      H    
M 0 X€ C 0 X_ K  X F
þ þ ρ ¼ (2) 3.1 CFD model and monitoring points
HT Π Mf p€ 0 0 p_ p 0
0 Kf
The CFD model composes with a pump-jet and a scaled
where M, K, C are the mass matrix, stiffness matrix, and submarine, namely, SUBOFF (Groves et al., 1989). Main
damping matrix of the coupled system; X is the displace- parameters are shown in Table 1. The whole computational
ment of structural nodes; F is the fluid excitation force of domain, including the stator domain, rotor domain, and
pump-jet obtained by CFD; ρ is the density of acoustic stationary domain, is a cylinder with a radius of hull length
medium; p is the pressure vector in the fluid; Π denotes the and extends a hull length upstream from the bow as well as
influence from structure to sound; and Mf , Kf , H are the two hull lengths downstream from the stern, as shown in
Zhang et al.
Figure 1. Computational domain of pump-jet–SUBOFF.
Figure 2. Meshes of the computational domain.
Figure 1. The inlet and far field of the computational domain
are set as velocity inlet boundary conditions (9.152 m/s),
while the outlet is set as pressure outlet boundary condition
with a reference pressure of 0 Pa. In order to ensure the
convergence and computational efficiency, the SST k-ω
model is used to calculate three-dimensional steady flow as
an initial result for unsteady flow calculation. Time step is
set as 2.56 × 105 s and the total simulation time is 1 s. The
rotor speed is set as 2170 rpm. The convergence criterion is
defined according to Yu et al. (2020).
The computational domain is discretized by the com-
bination of hexa-structured meshes (stator domain and
stationary domain) and hybrid-unstructured meshes (rotor
2731
domain) in the present work, as shown in Figure 2. The
mesh number of the entire computational domain is ap-
proximately 17 million, including about 5 million rotor
domain meshes, 7.5 million stator domain meshes, and 5
million stationary domain meshes.
A series of monitoring points are arranged on the duct
wall to obtain the unsteady pressure fluctuations of the duct
surface. A total of 7 (number of rotors) group monitoring
points are set on the inner wall of the duct along the cir-
cumferential direction, one of which (the zone of single
rotor blade) is shown in Figure 3(a). Similarly, a total of 4
group monitoring points are set on the outer wall of the duct
along the circumferential direction, one of which is shown
2732 Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of monitoring points: (a) inner wall of duct and (b) outer wall of duct.

Table 2. Three sets of grids propulsion efficiencies of three grid schemes.

Grid numbers (million) Propulsion efficiency
Rotor domain Stator domain Stationary domain J = 0.4 J = 0.8 J = 1.2
Coarse 4.5 5.8 4.3 0.498 0.712 0.828
Medium 5.3 7.5 5 0.482 0.706 0.816
Fine 5.8 8.6 5.5 0.482 0.701 0.814

Table 3. Predicted resistances with different inflow speeds.

Inflow speeds (Kn) Predicted resistance (N) Experiment values (N) Error (%)
5.93 103.7 102.3 0.9
10 288.6 283.8 1.7
13.92 542.9 526.6 3.1
17.79 848.1 821.1 3.2

in Figure 3(b). And importantly, the distribution of moni- computational efficiency and accuracy, medium grids are
toring points is basically consistent with the node co- chosen to the simulation.
ordination of FEM.
3.2.2 Model validation. In order to verify the accuracy of the
3.2 Grid independence and model verification calculation method and grid discretization in this paper, the
resistance performance of the SUBOFF under different
3.2.1 Grid independence analysis. In order to eliminate the
inflow speeds is predicted and compared with the experi-
influence of grid quantity on the calculation results of the
ment (Liu and Huang, 1998). The grid discretization of
flow field, three sets of grids with different sizes (coarse,
SUBOFF is also based on the medium grid scheme. Table 3
medium, and fine) are generated to verify grid in-
shows that the resistance prediction under different inflow
dependence. The result is estimated using the propulsion
speeds is in good agreement with the experiment in which
efficiency of the pump-jet. The propulsion efficiency of the
the error is within 3.2%, indicating the calculation method
pump-jet, as a function of the advance coefficient J, is
and grid discretization are reliable.
contributed by the duct, stator, and rotor. Relevant hy-
drodynamic performance coefficients are defined according
to Sun et al. (2019). The grid quantity distribution and
3.3 Spectra of excitation forces
pump-jet propulsion efficiency are shown in Table 2. It is The loads on the inner and outer walls of the duct are
shown that the propulsion efficiency for different grid produced by multiplying the fluctuating pressure with the
quantities is basically consistent. Considering the area of the corresponding element. The excitation forces on
Zhang et al.
Figure 4. Excitation forces on duct wall: (a) inner wall and (b) outer wall.
the inner wall of the duct are mainly generated by the rotor
rotation (surface force). The time and frequency domain
characteristics in three locations (upstream of stator PI-1,
middle of stator, and rotor PI-2 and rotor disk surface PI-3)
are shown in Figure 4(a). The static data is neglected and
only the fluctuating value is presented for the time-history
results. It is observed that the time domain shows a periodic
characteristic and has 7 peaks in one rotation cycle of rotors,
corresponding to the number of rotor blades. The frequency
domain shows an evident discrete peak at BPF and its
multiple. The excitation force amplitude at the rotor disk
surface is far larger than the other two positions, and it is
mainly related to the distance to the rotor disk surface;
specifically, the difference of excitation force amplitude
between the stator upstream and rotor disk surface is about 2
orders of magnitude. Different from the induction mecha-
nism of excitation forces on the inner wall, excitation forces
on the outer wall are excited by turbulence of the external
flow field. The vortices with different scales in the TBL of
the duct migrate, decay, and regenerate in a relatively short
2733
distance, inducing an unsteady pressure fluctuation with
spatial-temporal randomness. The spectral analysis method
is usually used for statistical analysis of TBL pressure
fluctuation. In this paper, the auto-spectral density and
cross-spectral density of excitation forces are directly used
to analyze the random vibration response of the coupled
system under this type of load. The source characteristics
and spatial-temporal distribution of the TBL pressure
fluctuation on the outer wall will be introduced in detail in
the next paper. The time domain and auto-spectral density
characteristics of three locations along the streamwise di-
rection (front PO-1, middle PO-2, and tail PO-3) are shown
in Figure 4(b). It can be seen that the excitation force
amplitude is much smaller than that on the inner wall of the
duct but it does not mean that the contribution to acoustic
radiation is also inferior. Periodic component significantly
decays or even disappears except near the outlet of the duct.
Besides, the auto-spectral density shows an obvious
broadband characteristic and a decaying tendency as the
frequency goes up. A discrete component exists at BPF,
2734
Figure 5. FEM model of pump-jet–SUBOFF: (a) structure of coupled system and (b) waterbody grids.
which indicates that the external flow of the duct is also
affected by the rotor at the same time.`
4. Structure responses of pump-jet–
SUBOFF
For the excitations on the inner and outer walls with dif-
ferent sources, the vibro-acoustic characteristics of the
coupled system are conducted separately. The specific
calculation process is as follows: Firstly, the time-domain
loads of each node on duct FEM surface can be obtained by
multiplying the fluctuating pressure at the monitoring point
by the corresponding element area, and the frequency-
domain data is obtained through fast Fourier transform
(FFT). It should be emphasized that the coordinates of
monitoring points are consistent with the coordinates of
FEM nodes. Then, the real and imaginary parts for the
frequency-domain force spectra of excitations on the inner
wall or auto-spectral density of excitations on the outer wall
are, respectively, applied in ABAQUS to consider the
amplitude and phase of the excitation force at different
Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)
frequencies. Finally, the steady-state and random responses
in the frequency domain for different excitation types are
calculated, respectively.
4.1 Finite element model
In order to investigate the vibration transmission character-
istics of coupled pump-jet–SUBOFF system for different
excitations of duct, an FEM is established in Figure 5 in detail.
Hull, fairwater, bulkheads, and stern appendages are modeled
by shell elements with a thickness of 5 mm. The pump-jet,
including duct, stators, and rotors, is modeled with solid el-
ements. The shaft is modeled with beam elements and both
ends are supported with a thrust bearing at the center of the
bulkhead and a stern bearing at the stern of the hull. The length
and radius of the shaft are 0.95 m and 0.02 m. The longi-
tudinal, lateral, and vertical stiffness of the thrust bearing is 8 ×
109 N/m, 2.3 × 108 N/m, and 6.7 × 108 N/m, while both the
lateral and vertical stiffness of the stern bearing are 6.7 × 108
N/m. In order to ensure the stiffness of the model, especially
fairwater and stern appendages, the ring stiffeners and
Zhang et al.
Table 4. Wet and dry modes of coupled pump-jet–SUBOFF.
longitudinal stiffeners modeled with beam elements are dis-
tributed on the hull, bulkheads, fairwater, and stern appen-
dages. The material of rotors is brass and density, elastic
modulus as well as Poisson’s ratio are 8800 kg/m3, 1.1 ×
1011 Pa, and 0.3, respectively. The material of other structures
is steel and density, elastic modulus, and Poisson’s ratio are
7850 kg/m3, 2.1 × 1011 Pa, and 0.3, respectively. A structural
damping of 0.005 is set.
Considering the fluid–structure interaction, the fluid
medium near the hull and pump-jet is modeled to simulate
2735
the interaction between deformed structure and fluid
loading, as shown in Figure 5(b). In order to ensure the
accuracy and calculational efficiency, water zones are di-
vided into near water zone with a fine mesh density and far
water zone with a moderate mesh density. The length of
water zones is 1.25 L as well as 2 L, respectively, and the
diameters are 3D as well as 8D. The density and bulk
modulus is 998 kg/m3 and 2.1 × 109 Pa. In order to eliminate
the influence of water body boundaries on calculations,
acoustic non-reflecting boundary conditions are set.
2736
Figure 6. Velocity responses excited by inner flow of duct: (a) wet and (b) dry.
4.2 Modal analysis
The modes of the coupled system are studied to understand
the natural vibration properties because the excitation forces
on the duct wall can cause resonance and then radiate noise
to the surrounding space. As shown in Table 4, typical wet
and dry modes of coupled pump-jet–SUBOFF are mainly
reflected in the duct, hull, shafting system, and coupled
multi-components within 550 Hz.
4.3 Vibration responses excited by internal flow
of duct
4.3.1 Comparison of velocity responses between wet and dry
surfaces. Figure 6 shows the vibration characteristics of
coupled pump-jet–SUBOFF under the excitation forces
applied on the inner wall of the duct. The hull surface
velocity at different positions is selected to analyze the
vibration transmission. Considering the fluid–structure in-
teraction, main peak responses are at 104.9 Hz (lateral
bending mode of hull), 234.3 Hz (vertical bending mode of
hull), 253.2 Hz (breathing mode of hull coupled with
bending mode of stern), 321.7 Hz (torsional mode of ap-
pendages coupled with bending mode of stern), 369.2 Hz
(breathing mode of hull coupled with bending mode of
stern), and 480 Hz/508 Hz (bending modes of duct). The
largest peak is at 234.3 Hz, which contributes from the
second bending mode of the hull. The velocity response at
the stator hub is the largest and gradually decreases from
pump-jet to hull in the low-frequency range. It is worth
mentioning that the velocity response of the thrust bearing
also has a peak at 196.5 Hz (longitudinal mode of shafting
system), which indicates that the duct excitation by inner
flow will transfer to the thrust bearing through the stator and
hull. On this basis, the coupled effect between shafting
system and duct–stator–hull causes the resonance of
shafting system (longitudinal mode). Besides, the vibration
responses in the air are shown in Figure 6(b). Peak
Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)
distributions in the air are displayed in bending mode of the
hull (146 Hz, 323 Hz), bending of shafting system coupled
with breathing of the duct (252 Hz), bending mode of hull
coupled with bending mode of fairwater (335 Hz), fairwater
mode coupled with bending mode of the hull (304.2 Hz),
bending mode of stern coupled with the torsional mode of
appendages (377.8 HZ), bending mode of duct (494 Hz),
and longitudinal mode of the hull (565 Hz). Meanwhile, the
longitudinal mode (199.6 Hz) and bending mode (224.3 Hz)
of the shafting system are excited by the excitations on the
duct wall. In conclusion, the vibration response excited by
the inner flow of the duct mainly contributes from hull, duct,
and appendages modes, such as bending of hull and duct,
and it also causes coupled vibration between duct–stator–
hull and shafting system. The fluid–structure interaction is
specifically manifested as the influence of mass and stiff-
ness for the coupled system, as shown in equation (2). The
mass is reflected as different characteristic frequencies in
the same dominant mode of the hull, while the stiffness is
different responses under characteristic frequencies caused
by different types of dominant modes.
4.3.2 Comparison of load applying methods. Due to the ex-
istence of rotors and stators, the pulsation force distribution
characteristics at different zones on the inner wall of the
duct are different, mainly in front of and behind the stator.
Generally, it is common to apply loads only at the rotor disk
surface in engineering applications, but the accuracy is still
unknown. Therefore, the vibration transmission charac-
teristics for other loading methods are described in Figure 7
(considering the fluid–structure interaction). The first
method is to apply distributed loads only on the rotor disk
surface, while the second method is to apply uniform loads
in the stator front zone, stator hub zone, and stator rear zone
of the inner wall, respectively. Compared with the vibration
response applying distribution forces on the inner wall, the
method of applying loads on the rotor disk surface slightly
underestimates the response amplitude, especially at low
Zhang et al.
frequencies. More importantly, the method cannot accu-
rately reflect the coupled vibration between the shafting
system as well as duct–stator–hull and the peak at 196.5 Hz
is not shown. For the method of applying loads in three
zones, it will highly overestimate the response amplitude
and the peak distribution is very unreliable. It may be
because the loads concentrated on the rotor disk surface are
uniformly distributed to the stator rear zone. Therefore, the
two loading methods cannot accurately estimate the force
transmission characteristics under the excitations on the
inner wall of the duct, such as the coupling effect between
the shafting system and duct–stator–hull, especially in the
range of low frequencies.
4.4 Vibration responses excited by outer flow of duct
The random response of pump-jet–SUBOFF excited by
the outer flow of the duct is represented in Figure 8. The
fluid–structure interaction is not considered in the current
random response. For the response on the hull shown in
Figure 8(a), main peaks are at 146 Hz (bending mode of
Figure 7. Velocity responses for different load applying methods: (a) applying distributed forces on rotor disk surface and (b) applying
uniform forces in three zones.
Figure 8. Auto-spectral density of velocity responses excited by outer flow of duct: (a) hull at different positions and (b) bearings.
2737
hull), 199.6 Hz (longitudinal mode of shafting system),
the characteristic excitation frequency 252 Hz (longitu-
dinal vibration of bulkheads coupled with shafting sys-
tem), 304.2 Hz (fairwater mode coupled with bending
mode of hull and duct), 367.6 Hz (longitudinal vibration
mode of bulkheads), 444.2 Hz (bending mode of fair-
water), 510.6 Hz (breathing mode of hull coupled with
bending mode of duct), and 565 Hz (longitudinal mode of
hull). It is worth mentioning that the force transmission
from pump-jet to hull has an amplification, owing to the
fact that vibration distributions of amplitude at the hull
are bigger than that of pump-jet. The biggest response is
reflected in the longitudinal mode of the hull. Besides, the
auto-spectral density of the stern bearing is similar to the
hull, but the force transmitted to the shafting system from
bearings will excite a significant peak at the longitudinal
mode of the shafting system. It indicates that the duct
excitation in the outer flow also will transfer to bearings
through the stator as well as the hull, and causes a coupled
vibration of the shafting system. The vibration response
excited by outer flow similarly contributes from hull,
2738
duct, and appendages modes, but the excited modal
features are more complex and abundant, such as fair-
water and bulkheads.
4.5 Comparison of vibration intensity distributions
excited by inner and outer flow
The root mean square velocity under different excitation
sources is applied to compare the intensity distribution of
vibration energy, as shown in Figure 9. For excitation forces
of outer flow, the dominant modes affecting the energy
contribution are mainly the bending mode of the hull
(146 Hz), longitudinal vibration of bulkheads coupled with
the shafting system (252 Hz), and longitudinal mode of the
hull (565 Hz). The energy caused by coupled vibration of
the shafting system mainly converges from the longitudinal
mode (199.6 Hz). From the perspective of energy ampli-
tude, the energy excited by outer flow is greatly lower than
that of inner flow in the whole frequency range, especially at
low frequencies.
5. Acoustic responses of pump-jet–
SUBOFF
In order to investigate the acoustic radiation characteristics
for different excitation sources, the vibration velocity or
displacement of the model surface as a boundary condition
of BEM analysis is applied to estimate the sound power
level and sound pressure distribution on the boundary of the
hull.
5.1 Radiated sound power level
The radiated sound power level under the excitation force of
the inner and outer walls is shown in Figure 10. For the
predicted sound radiation based on velocity responses under
two loading methods on the inner wall shown in
Figure 10(a), the remarkable peaks in water (Wref = 6.7 ×
1019), that is, considering the fluid–structure interaction,
Figure 9. Root mean square velocity responses: (a) excited by outer flow and (b) excited by inner flow.
Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)
produced by applying distributed forces only on rotor disk
surface are similar to that of produced by applying dis-
tributed forces on the inner wall. However, the amplitude
applying on the rotor disk surface is underestimated and the
gap is gradually narrowed with the increase of frequencies.
It is consistent with the vibration transmission character-
istics generated by the two loading methods. The dominant
frequencies mainly include 104.9 Hz (lateral bending mode
of hull), 234.3 Hz (vertical bending mode of the hull),
253.2 Hz/296.6 Hz/344.3 Hz/369 Hz (breathing mode of the
hull coupled with bending mode of the stern), 321.7 Hz
(torsional mode of appendages coupled with bending mode
of the stern), 474.4 Hz (breathing mode of stern), and
507 Hz (complex coupled mode of rotor blade bending, duct
breathing, and hull breathing). It is indicated that the modes
of the hull contribute almost to the sound radiation. Al-
though the duct excitations by inner flow can cause a lon-
gitudinal vibration response of the shafting system, it is not
sensitive to acoustic radiation. The maximum peak con-
tributes from the second vertical bending mode of the hull at
234.3 Hz. Moreover, the radiated sound power level (in air,
Wref = 1 × 1012) produced by the forces of the inner and
outer wall is represented, respectively, in Figure 10(b) to
compare the acoustic radiation characteristics. For the
sound power level produced by the excitation forces on the
outer wall, the biggest amplitude is at 565 Hz because the
longitudinal mode of the hull can induce an intense vi-
bration response. The dominant frequencies include 146 Hz
(bending mode of the hull), 199.6 Hz (longitudinal mode of
the shafting system), 252 Hz (longitudinal vibration of
bulkheads coupled with the shafting system), 304.2 Hz
(fairwater mode coupled with bending mode of the hull),
367.6 Hz (longitudinal vibration mode of bulkheads),
444.2 Hz (bending mode of fairwater), and 565 Hz (lon-
gitudinal mode of the hull). Moreover, some small am-
plitudes appear at 94.3 Hz (vertical bending mode of the
shafting system) and 510.6 Hz (breathing mode of hull
coupled with bending mode of the duct). The acoustic
radiation is also related to the modes of hull and
Zhang et al.
appendages. From the perspective of amplitude compari-
son, the amplitude excited by the forces on the outer wall is
slightly lower than the amplitude excited by the forces on
the inner wall at low frequencies and a relatively high sound
radiation amplitude exists at high frequencies. It also can be
seen that although the vibration energy excited by inner
excitation forces is greater than that excited by outer ex-
citation forces, the sound radiation to the surrounding space
is relatively close. In addition, the sound radiation for
different excitation sources on the inner and outer walls has
several peaks at the same frequencies 146 Hz, near 252 Hz,
304.2 Hz, as well as 565 Hz. Most of their frequencies have
a significant influence on energy contributions of vibration
responses on the outer wall of the duct.
5.2 Sound pressure distributions for different
excitation sources
The sound pressure distributions on the boundary of
pump-jet–SUBOFF are applied to localize the high
sound pressure zone of radiated sound field for different
excitation sources. Four frequencies 146 Hz, 252 Hz,
304.2 Hz, and 565 Hz are chosen, as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 10. Radiated sound power level: (a) comparison of two methods for applying loads on inner wall and (b) comparison of
excitations on inner and outer wall of duct.
Figure 11. Sound pressure distributions on the boundary of pump-jet–SUBOFF (upper: excitations on inner wall, lower: excitations on
outer wall).
2739
For 146 Hz, the sound mainly radiated from the bow,
middle, and stern due to the vertical or lateral bending
mode of the hull. For 252 Hz, the high sound zone pro-
duced by the excitations on the inner wall mainly radiated
from the stern because of the vibration of the shafting
system, while the coupled breathing mode of the duct does
not provide significant acoustic radiation. However, the
sound generation due to the excitations on the outer wall at
252 Hz mainly radiated from the longitudinal vibration
mode of bulkheads coupled with the shafting system and
the high sound pressure is distributed in the rotors as well
as stern. It indicated that the radiation efficiency of
shafting system vibration is dominant at this frequency.
For 304.2 Hz, the sound pressure due to the forces on the
inner wall is more widely distributed in the hull than that
on the outer wall. For 565 Hz, the acoustic radiation is
mainly radiated from the bow and stern since the mode
contributes most to the response in the longitudinal di-
rection. Through comparison of different excitation
sources, it is found that the acoustic radiation for the duct
excitation is almost contributed by the vibration of the
hull. Moreover, the vibro-acoustic responses are different
at the characteristic excitation frequency of 252 Hz.
2740
6. Conclusions
In this paper, the vibro-acoustic responses of a scaled pump-
jet–submarine hull model excited by fluid excitations on the
wall of the duct are numerically investigated. The three-
dimensional unsteady flow is simulated using CFD to obtain
the unsteady excitations on the wall of the duct. The vibro-
acoustic responses for excitation forces of the inner and
outer walls are contrastively investigated through estab-
lishing coupled FEM/BEM. Besides, the excitation loading
methods for the inner flow of the duct are investigated. The
following conclusions are derived:
(1) The excitation forces on the inner wall of the duct show
a periodic characteristic and force spectra have an
evident discrete peak at BPF and its multiple due to
a periodic fluctuation generated by the rotor rotation.
The excitation forces on the inner wall are almost
concentrated on the rotor disk surface. Besides, the
excitation forces on the outer wall caused by vortices’
motion with different scales have a random charac-
teristic. The force spectra represent an obvious
broadband characteristic and are affected by the rotor at
the same time, protruding at BPF.
(2) For different excitations on the inner and outer walls of
the duct, the vibration responses mainly contribute from
hull modes. And importantly, the excitations of the duct
will transfer to the thrust bearing through the stator and
hull and cause a coupled vibration between the duct–
stator–hull and shafting system.
(3) The loading methods of excitations on the inner wall
(applying distributed forces on the rotor disk surface
and applying uniform forces in the stator front zone,
stator zone, and stator rear zone of the inner wall)
cannot accurately estimate the force transmission
characteristics, especially the coupled vibration of the
shafting system. The method for applying distributed
forces on the inner wall is more reliable.
(4) The acoustic radiation for different excitations of the
duct is almost contributed by the modes of the hull,
which is similar to the response of vibration trans-
mission. The sound radiation power level for the
excitations on the outer wall is slightly lower than
that on the inner wall at low frequencies and a rela-
tively high sound radiation efficiency exists at high
frequencies. Although the vibration energy excited
by inner excitation forces is greater than that excited
by outer excitation forces, the sound radiation to the
surrounding space is relatively close. For different
loading methods of excitations on the inner wall, the
sound radiation power level for applying distributed
forces on the rotor disk surface is greatly under-
estimated at low frequencies and is gradually closed
as the frequency goes up, illustrating the importance
of loading methods.
Journal of Vibration and Control 30(11-12)
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under
Grant No. 52241501.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with re-
spect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 52241501.
ORCID iDs
Junyue Zhang  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2723-2317
Huiyao Li  https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0338-5202
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