Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2006
This paper describes a prototype model experiment designed to test the principle that the ‘excess’ noise of a jet issuing from a conical nozzle can be significantly diminished by reducing the maximum pressure gradient in the flow. The experiment uses a water jet containing flow inhomogeneities in the form of air or helium bubbles exhausting through a conventional conical nozzle or a specially contoured ‘bellmouth’ nozzle. It is argued that the level of the internally generated noise is controlled by the mean-flow pressure gradient, and substantial reductions in the sound level are recorded with the bellmouth nozzle. Certain features of the acoustic pressure signatures of the two-phase flow are examined in detail, in particular a rather surprising absolute difference in the sound pressure levels produced when helium rather than air bubbles are used under otherwise identical mean-flow conditions. Theoretical arguments are advanced which appear to explain the principal features of the observations.