Noise and Erosion of Self-Resonating Cavitating Jets

Self-resonating jets have been developed which take advantage of the natural tendency of a jet to organize in large structures. Tests have shown that these jets are both highly erosive and a source of a discrete frequency high level noise. Simultaneous investigations of the noise and erosion of these jets have been conducted and have shown a definite trend toward correlation. For instance, time evolution of volume removal rates of an impacted surface and rms readings of a pressure transducer have been found to be correlated. Similarly, shifts in the relative importance of the various frequencies have followed the advancement of erosion. These results could be of great advantage in the determination of the evolution of a jet cutting operation in progress. In this paper jet noise and erosion correlation tests will be described and the results analyzed.