Fundamental Study of the Transmission Loss of Jet Noise Through Water Curtains

Jet noise from high-performance aircraft poses significant health risks to personnel on aircraft carriers. This study investigates the fundamental acoustic properties of a water curtain as a non-intrusive method for mitigating the jet noise. An analytical and numerical approach is used to approximate the reduction of jet noise due to a water curtain. An analytical model based on one-dimensional plane-wave theory provides a maximum theoretical baseline for transmission loss, while a two-dimensional numerical simulation is used to solve the linear acoustic wave equation and capture more complex physics. The numerical model is first validated against the analytical solution, showing very good agreement within 1.8 dB of the analytical solution. For more realistic finite-width curtains, diffraction effects are shown to be dominant, significantly limiting the attenuation to a range of 9-11 dB for a 500 Hz monopole source. The results demonstrate that while a water curtain offers substantial noise reduction, its performance is primarily dictated by acoustic diffraction around its edges.