SURFACE TREATMENTS FOR NEXT GENERATION OF QUIET AEROFOILS
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Engineering
Abstract
A major advance in the reduction of aerofoil trailing edge self-noise has recently been made by the team at Virginia Tech led by Professors William Devenport and Stewart Glegg, collaborators in this project. They demonstrated that introducing 'canopies' into the turbulent boundary layer, which may be constructed from fabric, wires, or rods, produced significant reductions in the surface pressure spectrum near the trailing edge, and hence similar reductions in the far field noise. These treatments were chosen to reproduce the downy canopy that covers the surface of exposed flight feathers of many owl species. Aerofoil self-noise is often the dominant noise source emitted from lifting surfaces, such as aerofoils and turbine blades, and is a major issue in a number of strategically important sectors in the UK, including environment, energy and transport. This work is in its early stages and the precise control mechanisms are poorly understood.
This 36-month project is concerned with establishing the fundamental physical control mechanisms of surface treatments with the objective of developing effective treatments on aerofoil geometries at realistic Reynolds numbers and Angle of attack (AoA) that do not significantly degrade aerodynamic performance. The project is a combination of advanced and detailed experimentation together with the application of recent advances in high-resolution computational methods and high-performance computing. At the heart of this project is the use of a new turbulent off-wall boundary condition to allow accurate modelling of the interaction between the boundary layer and canopy surfaces.
This 36-month project is concerned with establishing the fundamental physical control mechanisms of surface treatments with the objective of developing effective treatments on aerofoil geometries at realistic Reynolds numbers and Angle of attack (AoA) that do not significantly degrade aerodynamic performance. The project is a combination of advanced and detailed experimentation together with the application of recent advances in high-resolution computational methods and high-performance computing. At the heart of this project is the use of a new turbulent off-wall boundary condition to allow accurate modelling of the interaction between the boundary layer and canopy surfaces.
Organisations
- University of Southampton (Lead Research Organisation)
- UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE (Collaboration)
- Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) (Collaboration)
- Siemens Gamesa (Project Partner)
- EDF Energy (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Altair Engineering (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Dyson Limited (Project Partner)
- Science & Technology Facilities Council (Project Partner)
Publications
Palleja-Cabre S
(2022)
Downstream porosity for the reduction of turbulence-aerofoil interaction noise
in Journal of Sound and Vibration
Description | SURFACE TREATMENTS FOR NEXT GENERATION QUIET AEROFOILS |
Amount | £1,200,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | X313200X |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2021 |
End | 08/2024 |
Description | Collaboration with scientists at Cambridge University |
Organisation | University of Cambridge |
Department | Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Provision of experimental data. |
Collaborator Contribution | Regular meetings with academics from Cambridge applied maths dept whose work compliments our own |
Impact | conference papers |
Start Year | 2021 |
Description | Collaboration with scientists at TU Delft |
Organisation | Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) |
Country | Netherlands |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Transfer of idea to TU Delft to start collaboration |
Collaborator Contribution | Our post-doc is working for 2 weeks in TU Delft for us to learn of their experimental methods. |
Impact | None yet |
Start Year | 2021 |