Cavitation Noise In Submarines & Control Valves
Tom Rafferty2023-09-08T09:09:08-04:00Nautical engineers design propellers for submarines, and mechanical engineers design control valves for industrial plants. These engineering tasks have more in common than you might think. Let Off Some Steam As a submarine propeller turns, it creates a low pressure area at the trailing edge of each blade. Now, at sufficiently low pressures, water becomes steam. Yes, water becomes steam at sufficiently high temperatures, but it also becomes steam at sufficiently low pressures. In other words, you can boil water with low pressure just as you can boil it with high temperature. So, if the spinning propeller produces sufficiently low pressure [...]