Workshop on Computational Aero-Acoustics for Aircraft Noise Prediction

An IUTAM symposium will take place at the University of Southampton from the 29th to 31st March 2010. It will be of three days duration and will focus on Computational Aero-Acoustics (CAA) with particular application to aircraft noise.The necessity and urgency of reducing the environmental impact of air transport, including the impact both of noise and emissions, underpins the current workshop. This is a major technology challenge in pursuit of environmentally acceptable commercial aviation and a critical issue for the continued health of the aviation industry in the UK and elsewhere. The availability of affordable and convenient mass passenger air transport depends on the development of new technologies to reduce noise and increase fuel efficiency.The aim of the symposium is to bring together researchers, developers and users of CAA from academia, research institutes and industry for the purpose of assessing the current capabilities of CAA for aircraft noise prediction, reviewing the extent to which CAA has been validated, and discussing emerging techniques and their potential impact on CAA.A group of 40 experts and early career researchers, drawn from industry, academia and research establishments in the UK, Europe and North America, have been invited to participate. The workshop will be fully residential and the attendees will be accommodated at the venue for the duration of the meeting. This will permit a very full programme including evening discussions. There will be no parallel sessions and every participant will have the opportunity to give a presentation.The target audience for the workshop is the aeroacoustic research community, and noise specialists in the aircraft industry who are involved in aircraft noise prediction. The workshop will result in an agenda for further research and development in CAA which will accelerate the use of CAA in designing the next generation of quiet fuel efficient aircraft. The content and outcomes of the workshop will be communicated by publishing electronic proceedings freely available to researchers in industry and academia.

The immediate beneficiaries of the workshop will be the invited researchers, the early career attendees and the industrial representatives on the industry panel. Those who will benefit from the outcomes of the workshop, and specifically the e-proceedings will include most CAA researchers in industry and academia. The workshop will have a number of distinct benefits, for the attendees and for others: - It will act as a reference point for CAA researchers, both those who attend the workshop in person and those who access the proceedings on-line, by defining the current state of the art across a complete range of aircraft noise computations. - It will raise awareness among academic researchers of industry requirements for improved aircraft noise prediction and will guide them in formulating research programmes which will attract industry support and funding. - It will educate industry participants on the capabilities of current CAA methods and draw their attention to future developments which may impact on noise prediction capabilities. - It will identify critical areas across the whole spectrum of aircraft noise prediction where further development of CAA will lead rapidly to improved aircraft noise predictions. By bringing together leading researchers and a panel of industrial experts, the focussed nature of the workshop will also provide an ideal opportunity for the participants to establish closer working relationships and will facilitate future collaboration between industry and academic participants. In the longer term the impact of the workshop will be: - To facilitate the more rapid industrialisation of CAA methods leading to the design of quieter aircraft. - To further strengthen existing collaboration between researchers at the University of Southampton and the UK aerospace sector. The final beneficiaries of the workshop will be the general public who may enjoy the benefits of quieter more environmentally acceptable air transport. The authors of this proposal already have extensive collaborations with industry partners such as Rolls-Royce and Airbus, not only on CAA but on more general issues related to aircraft noise. The current workshop will strengthen and consolidate both of these relationships, and will ensure that any benefits that arise from the workshop are captured immediately by two major UK stakeholders.