When applied to aerofoils with non-negligible thickness, Amiet’s theory for turbulence-interaction noise prediction does not account for the alterations in the velocity field and acoustic response induced by the surface, resulting in an overestimation of the radiated noise. This study proposes a semi-analytical method that models turbulence distortion in the immediate vicinity of the surface starting from upstream flow conditions and considers the resulting effects on the acoustic response of the aerofoil. The distorted spectrum of the upwash velocity component is calculated using the asymptotic results of the rapid distortion theory (RDT) for very large- and small-scale turbulence, overcoming the need to define a representative location where turbulence characteristics are sampled. This distorted spectrum is characterised by an increased energy content that is encompassed in the model by scaling the analytical flat-plate formulation of the aeroacoustic transfer function. The proposed approach relies on defining the aerofoil geometrical feature that affects distortion mechanisms, required to extend the RDT results to such geometries. This parameter is identified as the path travelled by the turbulent eddies from the stagnation point to the position of maximum surface-pressure fluctuations, which is, in turn, related to flow acceleration and leading-edge sharpness. The accuracy of this methodology in enhancing noise prediction is demonstrated using numerical and experimental data of grid-generated turbulence interacting with different aerofoils.

Porous media are a promising technology to reduce turbulent boundary layer trailing edge noise. However, the fact that the porous material is grazed by turbulent flow on both sides makes its characterization not trivial. This paper describes the modifications resulting from the interaction between the grazing flows through the porous medium, defined as communication. To this end, lattice-Boltzmann simulations of two communicating turbulent channel flows separated by a fully resolved porous medium are carried out. The porous medium is realized as a 75% porous triply periodic minimal surface of type Schwarz’ P. Results are compared against the case with porous medium backed by a solid wall and the smooth wall channel flow. When communication between the two channel flows is allowed, spanwise coherent structures appear that are assimilated to a shear instability at a non-dimensional frequency of. Instantaneous flow through the porous medium is observed and is driven by a time-dependent pressure differential between the channels (with a zero mean and 7.8 Pa standard deviation). This leads to a decrease in energy in turbulent scales smaller than 2.5δ and for bulk scaled frequencies greater than. These flow modifications are not observed in the non-communicating case, with the wall preventing flow through, where the topology of the fluctuating statistics is similar to the smooth wall case. Finally, the drag is found to increase by over 200% with respect to the non-communicating case and 650% with respect to a smooth turbulent channel flow. The drag increase is found to be driven by the velocity fluctuations impinging on the porous topology. The communication does not follow the asymptotic drag relation for the same equivalent roughness, thus entering a different drag regime.

Amiet's model for turbulence-ingestion noise prediction for rotors is adapted to incorporate pointwise velocity measurements as input. This is accomplished by using an inverse strip theory approach and transforming the three-dimensional turbulence spectrum, which models inflow conditions, into a one-dimensional term. This latter modification enhances the low-fidelity prediction tool in two key ways. First, it enables its application in cases where turbulence modeling is unavailable, or detailed inflow characterization is impractical. In this way, for example, hot-wire anemometry measurements of the incoming turbulence can be used to compute the acoustic prediction. Second, since the conversion of the turbulence term entails introducing two new functions describing spanwise and axial turbulence correlations; this approach establishes a framework for Amiet's theory in which the contributions to turbulence alteration and noise scattering are separated and represented individually. This “modular” structure enables independent analysis and modeling of these contributions, facilitating the application of Amiet's model to complex flow configurations and rotor geometries. The proposed methodology is successfully validated through experimental measurements of a simplified axial-flight turbulence-interaction setup, where a two-bladed propeller interacts with grid-generated turbulence at three different advance ratios.

Ingested turbulence affects propeller noise at frequencies above the 2nd Blade Passing Frequency. The extension of the Amiet model to rotating structures is a useful tool to predict this phenomenon. However, comparison with the experimental results reveal discrepancies between predicted and measured acoustic spectra. A likely explanation for this mismatch lies in turbulence distortion.This paper investigates the effects of the propeller-induced flow field on incoming turbulence to obtain a comprehensive description of the flow physics and enhance, in future studies, Amiet’s prediction model.Lattice Boltzmann Very Large Eddy Simulations of a reference propeller operating at low-Reynolds number and subjected to turbulent inflow are performed. The spatial and temporal evolution of isotropic grid-generated turbulence approaching the propeller plane is characterized . The analysis shows that the leading edge interacts with anisotropic turbulence. This is due to the rotational flow induced by the propeller, streamtube contraction, and leading edge distortion.In addition, the effect of turbulence on the laminar separation bubble, conventionally present in flow at low Reynolds number, whose dynamics affects the acoustics at high frequencies, is analyzed. Acoustic spectra, obtained through the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings analogy applied to the propeller surface, are then linked to the aerodynamic sources.

This paper presents an experimental investigation into the aeroacoustic and aerodynamic impact of various flow-permeable fairings having different levels of airflow resistivity, including wire meshes, perforated plates, and 3D-printed materials based on the repetition of diamond-lattice unit cells. The fairings are installed upstream of a scaled LAGOON landing gear model, which incorporates a torque link and brake-like protuberances to replicate realistic noise sources. Acoustic-imaging measurements carried out on the baseline model reveal that these additional components contribute significantly to far-field acoustic radiation, altering both the location and strength of dominant noise sources. The flow-permeable fairings decrease the model loading and turbulence kinetic energy in its wake compared to a fully solid configuration due to less abrupt flow deflection, with a positive impact on undesired noise possibly arising from interactions with downstream, uncovered gear components. Furthermore, fairings characterized by high airflow resistivity offer comparable or superior sound reductions to the solid fairing within a frequency range where the self-noise produced by the airflow through material pores does not dominate. Beyond generating an extensive dataset to support the validation of numerical simulations, this study provides valuable insight into the development of innovative and more efficient passive sound-control solutions for landing gear systems.

Laminar to turbulent transition induced by spanwise periodic arrays of cylindrical roughness elements over a NACA 0012 airfoil is investigated by hotwire anemometry and infrared thermography. The roughness elements are placed in the flow under adverse pressure gradient. Three configurations are investigated, namely an isolated roughness element, a spanwise array of roughness elements, and a pair of arrays in stagger. The streamwise and spanwise interactions between roughness wakes are addressed, focusing on the evolution of mean flow features and mechanisms for the subsequent process of laminar-turbulent transition. The spanwise interaction between roughness elements involves the connections and merging of neighboring low-speed regions (MLS) in the wake, which affects the spanwise distribution and amplitude of the velocity streaks. The maximum effect on promoting transition is observed when two neighboring low-speed regions overlap with each other in the near wake (within 6 times roughness height). The addition of a second roughness array promotes transition when the spanwise spacing is larger than two times the roughness diameter. Spectral analysis of the streamwise velocity fluctuations reveals that the number of roughness elements within the spanwise array affects the number of MLSs and the dominant instability mechanism. For an odd number of MLSs, the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability dominates the growth of velocity fluctuations around the three-dimensional shear layers. For an even number of MLSs, both Kelvin–Helmholtz and asymmetric instabilities appear in the wake. In this case, the dominant mode that leads to transition depends on the spanwise spacing between roughness elements.

Conventional propellers operating at negative thrust conditions, even at 0 deg angle of attack, are characterized by flow separation and significantly different noise emissions than at positive thrust conditions. Operating the propeller at nonzero angles of attack at negative thrust conditions can further impact aerodynamic performance and far-field noise emission. This paper studies these effects using lattice-Boltzmann very large eddy simulations coupled with the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings analogy. At positive thrust, operation at 10 deg angle of attack increases thrust along the freestream direction by approximately 3% compared to operation at 0 deg angle of attack, while efficiency remains constant. Conversely, the negative thrust condition shows approximately a 7% decrease in thrust magnitude and a 10% reduction in regenerated power. In this condition, the positively cambered blade sections exhibit dynamic stall, resulting in broadband fluctuations of up to 10% of the mean loading near the blade tip. The nonzero angle of attack induces opposite variations in absolute blade loading between positive and negative thrust conditions, resulting in opposite changes in the noise directivity. At positive thrust, noise increases in the region from which the propeller is tilted away (i.e., below the propeller at a positive angle of attack), while the opposite occurs at negative thrust. The varying blade loading over the azimuth results in destructive interference between loading and thickness noise for the negative thrust case at the 10 deg angle of attack. These findings highlight the crucial role of considering nonzero angles of attack in propeller design and optimization analyses.

An experimental investigation is carried out to characterize the physical mechanisms by which a trailing-edge crack, idealized as a rectangular cavity to represent delamination damage, affects boundary layer development, coherent vortex shedding, and far-field noise of a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 0018 airfoil. Both clean and turbulent inflow conditions are considered to isolate the role of inflow disturbance in modifying these mechanisms. The primary objective is to gain insight into how a geometrical discontinuity at the trailing edge alters the coupled aerodynamic and aeroacoustic behavior. Far-field acoustic measurements and near-wake velocity field data are obtained in the anechoic wind tunnel at Delft University of Technology. Acoustic data from a phased microphone array (from prior work) are combined with new velocity field measurements using particle image velocimetry. The results reveal that increasing crack size leads to enhanced near-wall velocity gradients and stronger coherent vortex shedding, resulting in higher tonal noise levels, particularly at higher frequencies. Normalized tonal frequencies agree with the empirical prediction model of Brooks, Pope, and Marcolini for blunt trailing-edge noise, affirming the relevance of this model even in the presence of geometric imperfections. Under turbulent inflow, the coherent structure scale diminishes slightly, and the tonal frequency increases in the trailing-edge noise spectrum, indicating that inflow turbulence modifies the vortex shedding dynamics and should be accounted for in predictive models. This study is a first step toward understanding and modeling trailing-edge noise in the presence of structural damage, under varying flow conditions.

Recent studies on distributed electric propulsion systems suggest phase synchronization between rotors as a noise reduction strategy. However, the aerodynamic interactions between propellers' near fields and their influence on far-field tonal noise remain poorly understood, partly due to experimental limitations in microphone placement. This paper addresses this gap through lattice Boltzmann very large eddy simulations of three adjacent, co-rotating rotors, spaced radially at 2% of their diameter, to investigate how relative phase angle affects tonal noise directivity. Results reveal that proximity-induced aerodynamic interactions generate dominant tonal noise in most spatial directions, driven by two mechanisms: time-averaged inflow distortion from nearby propellers and impulsive local effects at blade tips, with the latter influenced by phase angle. While the directivity pattern of the blade-passing frequency harmonic tone remains consistent across phase angles, comparing cases with zero relative phase (blades aligned) and opposite-phase conditions shows sound pressure level shifts of up to 4.5 dB along the primary noise axis, namely, along the inflow direction. Conversely, acoustic interference significantly alters noise directivity, especially in opposite-phase conditions where sound is nearly canceled in specific directions. These findings highlight rotor synchronization as a promising strategy for reducing noise emissions toward sensitive areas.

Accurately determining experimental blade loading distributions is crucial for analyzing rotor performance but challenging due to the limitations of conventional measurement techniques. This paper presents a so-called wake-informed lifting line model that estimates blade loading distributions from phase-locked velocity measurements in the slipstream, eliminating the need for blade instrumentation. The model is evaluated against computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations under both attached and separated flow conditions. For the attached flow condition, the model achieves excellent agreement with CFD, with errors in the peak value of thrust distribution below 1%. In the separated flow condition, the model captures radial gradients and the shape of the thrust distribution but exhibits discrepancies in absolute values, with a 10% error in the peak value. These differences arise from the inherent limitations of the potential flow model, the increased significance of drag, and the heightened influence of the spinner’s presence in separated flows. Incorporating profile drag through external polar data improves the model prediction, reducing the error to 4%. The model cannot reliably predict power distributions without external polar data for both attached and separated flows due to the crucial role of drag in the torque direction. The application of the model to experimental flowfield data shows a performance similar to that of the validation case. Therefore, the wake-informed lifting line model offers a promising approach for obtaining experimental blade loading distributions, overcoming the limitations of traditional methods.

Acoustic liners, passive devices to mitigate engine noise, operate under high-speed grazing flow and grazing acoustic waves. To investigate the complex physics governing this interaction, high-fidelity numerical simulations of a spatially evolving turbulent boundary layer grazing a multi-orifice acoustic liner at a bulk Mach number of 0.32 are performed. The simulations replicate conditions from a reference experiment. Grazing tonal plane acoustic waves with amplitudes of 130 dB and 145 dB and propagating in the same direction and the direction opposite to the mean flow are analyzed. The results show that the boundary layer displacement thickness doubles in the presence of the liner and its growth rate is affected by the amplitude and propagation direction of the acoustic wave. The acoustic liner also promotes the formation of an outer hump in both the logarithmic region of the streamwise and wall-normal velocity variance, with these effects becoming more pronounced under acoustic forcing. Furthermore, impedance estimation, using Dean’s method, reveals that near-wall flow modifications, quantified through the displacement thickness, influence the local value of the computed impedance.

This computational study investigates the impact of manufacturing inaccuracies of face sheet orifice geometries on acoustic liners’ impedance and flow dynamics. Normal Impedance Tube (NIT) lattice-Boltzmann very-large eddy simulations at 130 and 145 dB and 800, 1400, and 2000 Hz reveal that sharp-edged geometries present increased acoustic resistance and absorption than geometries with smoother edges. Rounded and double-chamfered edge shapes, mimicking real-world imperfections, reduce the resistance component of impedance by up to 28%, thus reducing the absorption coefficient. The inspection of the velocity field shows the flow features that cause these differences. Results demonstrate that minor edge imperfections, potentially due to manufacturing, may alter liner performance. This underscores the need to account for geometric imperfections in industrial design and quality control.

Sound propagation in closed test section wind tunnels suffers from reflections and diffraction, which compromise acoustic measurements. In this article, it is proved possible to improve the post-processing of phased-array microphone measurements by using an approach based on the combination of numerical acoustic simulations and beamforming. A Finite Element Method solver for the Helmholtz equation is used to model the acoustic response of the experimental facility. The simulations are compared with acoustic experiments performed at TU Delft's Low Turbulence Tunnel, using both fully reflective (baseline) and lined test sections. The solver accurately predicts the acoustic propagation from a monopole sound source at the centre of the test section to the microphones in the phased-array, for frequencies in the range 500Hz<f<2000Hz. It is shown that a (lower fidelity) geometric modelling method is unable to precisely predict the acoustic response of the Low Turbulence Tunnel at these frequencies, due to strong acoustic diffraction. The numerical results are used to implement corrections to the post-processing of experimental data. A corrected version of the Source Power Integration method is able to increase the accuracy of the source's noise levels calculation, based on a single numerical simulation with the source at the same location as in the experiment. A Green's function correction increases the beamforming resolution and the source's noise levels estimation accuracy from the beamforming maps, without a priori knowledge of the source's location. Both corrections perform well at processing flow-on acoustic measurements, and the Green's function correction shows an additional benefit. The improvement in beamforming spatial resolution leads to an increase of the signal to noise ratio.

This study presents a numerical investigation of the aerodynamic and aeroacoustics behavior of side-by-side rotors in proximity to the ground. The configuration developed in the European H2020 project ENODISE is used as a reference. It features two counter-rotating APC 6x4 propellers, positioned at a height H/R = 2 above the ground, where R is the propeller radius, with a tip-to-tip distance S/R = 2, operating at a rotational speed of 167 Hz. Scale-resolved simulation is carried out using the Lattice-Boltzmann/Very-Large-Eddy-Simulation CFD solver SIMULIA PowerFLOW®. Analysis of the data describes the spatio-temporal of the flow field and describes in detail the bi-stable behavior of wake in the presence of the ground, which is then re-ingested by the rotor disks. This motion, occurring at a frequency two orders of magnitude lower than the rotor blade passing frequency, is similar to what was found experimentally. In addition, the present work shows the impact of this phenomenon on far-field noise by comparing sound pressure levels (SPL) pre- and post-re-ingestion in a semi-spherical manner. The findings reveal a significant increase in SPL across a broad frequency range as the occurrence of the re-ingestion.

This work examines the control of cross-flow instabilities (CFIs) and laminar–turbulent transition on a swept wing, through the plasma-based base flow modification (BFM) technique. The effect of experimentally derived plasma body forces on the steady boundary layer base flow is explored through numerical simulations. Linear stability theory is subsequently used to predict the net BFM effect on CFIs. Based on these preliminary predictions, experiments are conducted in a low-turbulence wind tunnel where a spanwise-invariant plasma actuator is installed near the wing leading edge and operated at constant input voltage and frequency. Various flow parameters governing the plasma-based BFM technique are investigated, namely the Reynolds number, angle of attack and wavelength of excited stationary CFI modes. Stationary and travelling CFIs are quantified by planar particle image velocimetry while the transition topology and location are recorded by infrared thermography. The results confirm the stabilising effect of BFM on the swept-wing boundary layer. However, the plasma-based BFM is found to render the boundary layer more susceptible to travelling CFIs. In the presence of both net BFM effect and intrinsic plasma unsteady perturbations, the plasma-based BFM technique achieves transition delay with specific combinations of Reynolds number, angle of attack and wavelength of excited stationary CFI modes. The present findings provide insights into the fundamental principles of operating plasma actuators within the context of BFM control.

The distortion of turbulence interacting with thick airfoils is analyzed with scale-resolved numerical simulations to elucidate its impact on leading-edge-noise generation and prediction. The effect of the leading-edge geometry is investigated by considering two airfoils with different leading-edge radii subjected to grid-generated turbulence. The velocity field is shown to be altered near the stagnation point, in a region whose extension does not depend on the leading-edge radius. Here, the deformation of large-scale turbulence causes the amplitude of the upwash velocity fluctuations to increase in the low-frequency range of the spectrum because of the blockage exerted by the surface. Conversely, the distortion of small-scale structures leads to an exponential decay of the spectrum at high frequencies due to the alteration of the vorticity field. The prevalence of a distortion mechanism over the other is found to depend on the size of the turbulent structures with respect to the curvilinear length from the stagnation point to the location where surface-pressure fluctuations and pressure gradient peak. This occurs at the curvilinear abscissa where the curvature changes the most. The same high-frequency exponential-decay slope observed for the upwash velocity is retrieved for surface-pressure spectra in the leading-edge region, suggesting that the airfoil unsteady response is induced by the distorted velocity field. This physical mechanism can be accounted for in Amiet's model by using a distorted turbulence spectrum as input and accounting for the increased amplitude of the distorted gust in the aeroacoustic transfer function, retrieving an accurate noise prediction for both airfoils.

This study investigates the impact of struts and a central tower on the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of Darrieus Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) at chord-based Reynolds numbers of 8.12 × 104. A 2-bladed H-Darrieus VAWT is used, featuring a 1.5m diameter, a solidity of 0.1 and a blade cross-section of symmetrical NACA 0021. The turbine design is kept simple and straight-bladed which is essential for isolating and analyzing the specific effects of struts and a tower. The high-fidelity Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) in PowerFLOW 6-2020 and the mid-fidelity Lifting Line Free Vortex Wake (LLFVW) method in QBlade 2.0 are employed, with the mid-fidelity method providing a faster analytical tool for insights into the turbine performance. Firstly, both the LLFVW (mid-fidelity) and LBM (high-fidelity) methods effectively capture the general trends observed in VAWT power performance. However, the former predicts mean thrust values that are approximately 10% higher, and mean torque values that are approximately 19% higher, in comparison to the latter. Subsequently, the former predicts lower streamwise wake velocities relative to those predicted by the latter. These differences increase in configurations that include struts and a tower (to 30% - 31%). Secondly, the presence of struts and a tower leads to a reduction in both mean power (by 15% to 55%) and thrust (by 3% to 3.6%), with a further small decrease observed when doubling the tower diameter (power and thrust both by 0.5% to 3%). The struts predominantly affect the spanwise distribution of blade loading, while the tower impacts the azimuthal variation of blade loading. Additionally, the addition of struts and a tower reduces low-frequency noise (50-200 Hz) while increasing high-frequency noise (> 300 Hz). The observed decrease in mean blade loading results in reduced low-frequency noise, while the increase in high-frequency noise is ascribed to the increased intensity of BWI/BVI leading to higher unsteady loading fluctuations on blades.

This study analyzes the alteration undergone by turbulent eddies as they approach a propeller operating at low Reynolds number, with the purpose of investigating the resulting effects on the noise emitted by the propeller. The two mechanisms affecting turbulence distortion, the streamtube contraction and the interaction between the turbulent structures and the blade, have been investigated experimentally. The set-up consists of a propeller with a diameter of 30 cm operating at a 75% chord-based Reynolds number of 10.8 × 104 interacting with the turbulence produced by a rectangular grid. The flow behavior has been studied by particle image velocimetry (PIV) and hot-wire anemometry (HWA), while a microphone arc was installed for the acoustic analysis. The results reveal that the interaction between incoming turbulence and the propeller plays a dominant role in the alteration of turbulence with respect to the streamtube contraction. This is due to the relatively low contraction ratio of the propeller at this regime, equal, in this case, to C.R.=1.3. Turbulence characteristics are used as input for two different analytical noise-prediction models, both based on Amiet’s theory for turbulence-impingement noise. The first implements the original formulation of Amiet for propeller noise, which requires a position along the blade to be specified to define all the inputs. The second has been developed in the present work to account for the variations of the blade geometry and turbulence conditions in the radial direction. The comparison between the noise predictions and the experimental measurements shows that a better agreement can be obtained with the second model. This reveals that noise generation is strongly dependent on the variation of the flow conditions and propeller geometry along the radial direction, confirming that the description of these characteristics can enhance the accuracy of low-fidelity noise-prediction methods.

Correction Notice 1. The vertical axis ticks in the subfigures of Fig 10 should be reverted to align with the global coordinate system of the simulation domain. The updated figure is presented below. Not the one presented in the original manuscript. (Figure Presented).

Using propellers in negative thrust conditions can potentially result in many benefits, such as a steeper descent, a reduced landing run, reduced community noise, energy regeneration, etc. However, the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of propellers in this regime are not well understood. This paper presents an aeroacoustic analysis of an isolated propeller operating in both positive and negative thrust conditions, using scale-resolved lattice-Boltzmann very large eddy simulations and the Ffowcs Williams & Hawkings analogy. The propeller was operated at a constant tip Mach number so that any differences in tonal noise between positive and negative thrust conditions were due to changes in blade loading. Results showed that the flow separation around the blades in the negative thrust case led to a 2 to 6 times higher standard deviation in integrated thrust compared to the positive thrust case. The blade loading in the negative thrust case shows the amplitude of fluctuations up to 18% for inboard sections and up to 30% near the blade tip compared to the time-averaged loads. The noise in the propeller plane is 10 dB higher in the positive thrust regime than in the negative thrust regime at a given absolute thrust level of |T_C = 0.08|. The lower noise at negative thrust is caused by two factors: the lower magnitude of the negative torque compared to the positive torque at a given thrust level and the shift of the blade loading inboard in the negative thrust condition due to the stall of the blade tip. Along the propeller axis, the negative thrust regime has 13-15 dB higher noise because of the increased broadband noise generated by the flow separation. In the negative thrust case, the noise along the propeller axis (89 dB) and propeller plane (92 dB) are comparable. However, this is not the case for the propulsive case. The comparison of noise in the vicinity of the propeller plane showed that using the propellers in negative thrust conditions allows for a steeper and quieter descent compared to a conventional descent; as long as the magnitude of the negative torque produced is equal to or less than the torque required to operate the propeller in a conventional landing.