An analytic solution for gust–cascade interaction noise including effects of realistic aerofoil geometry

Abstract

This paper presents an analytic solution for the sound generated by rotor–stator interaction for aerofoils with small camber and thickness subject to a background flow with small angle of attack. The interaction is modelled as a convected, unsteady vortical or entropic gust incident on an infinite rectilinear cascade of staggered aerofoils in a background flow that is uniform far away from the cascade. Applying rapid distortion theory (RDT) and transforming to an orthogonal coordinate system reduces the cascade of aerofoils to a cascade of flat plates. By seeking a perturbation expansion in terms of the disturbance of the background flow from uniform flow, leading- and first-order governing equations and boundary conditions are obtained for the acoustic potential. The system is then solved analytically using the Wiener–Hopf method. The resulting expression is inverted to give the acoustic potential function in the entire domain, i.e. a solution to the inhomogeneous convected Helmholtz equation with inhomogeneous boundary conditions in a cascade geometry. The solution significantly extends previous analytical work that is restricted to flat plates or only calculates the far-upstream radiation, and as such can give insight into the role played by blade geometry on the acoustic field upstream, downstream and in the important inter-blade region of the cascade. This new solution is validated against solutions that only account for flat plates at zero angle of attack. Various aeroacoustic results, including the scattered pressure, unsteady lift and sound power output, are discussed for a range of geometries and angles of attack.