Objective This paper aims to reveal the influence law of cushion pressure on the underwater noise radiation of air cushion vehicles (ACVs).

Methods An ACV is taken as a computational example. First, the forming process of the skirt under cushion pressure is simulated according to the Newton–Raphson iteration method. Second, a numerical model considering skirt-air cushion-water coupling is established via the vibro-acoustic finite element method (FEM) and calibrated based on modal tests. Third, comparisons are made of the sound power level (SWL) of the ACV's underwater radiation noise under different pressure levels on the skirt and different cushion depression depths.

Results Underwater radiation noise is found to be positively correlated with air cushion pressure. The overall SWL increases by nearly 0.97 dB while the air cushion pressure increases by 1000 Pa. Increasing the stiffness of the skirt can effectively reduce the underwater radiation noise in the low frequency band, and increasing the cushion depression depth will increase the peak value of the SWL in the higher frequency band, and make the peak position shift to the low frequency direction.

Conclusion The influence law of air cushion pressure revealed in this paper has important guiding significance for evaluating and numerically predicting the acoustic performance of ACVs.