Wavenumber-Frequency Analysis of Internal Aerodynamic Noise in Constriction-Expansion Pipe

High-pressure gas is produced during the oil production process at offshore plants, and pressure relief devices, such as valves, are widely used to protect related systems from it. The high-pressure gas in the pipes connected to the flare head is burned at the flare stack, or, if it is nontoxic, is vented to the atmosphere. During this process, excessive noise is generated by the pressure relief valves that are used to quickly discharge the high-pressure gas to the atmosphere. This noise sometimes causes severe acoustic-induced vibration in the pipe wall. This study estimated the internal aerodynamic noise due to valve flow in a simple constriction-expansion pipe, by combining the large eddy simulation technique with a wavenumber-frequency analysis, which made it possible to decompose the fluctuating pressure into the incompressible hydrodynamic pressure and compressible acoustic pressure. First, the steady-state flow was numerically simulated, and the result was compared with a quasi-one-dimensional theoretical solution, which confirmed the validity of the current numerical method. Then, an unsteady simulation analysis was performed to predict the fluctuating pressure inside a pipe. Finally, the acoustic pressure modes in a pipe were extracted by applying the wavenumber-frequency transform to the total pressure field. The results showed that the acoustic pressure fluctuations in a pipe could be separated from the incompressible ones. This made it possible to obtain accurate information about the acoustic power, which could be used to assess the likelihood of a piping system failure due to acoustic-induced vibration, along with information about the acoustic power spectrum of each acoustic mode, which could be used to facilitate the systematic mitigation of the potential acoustic-induced vibration in piping systems.