Comparison of measured broadband noise attenuation spectra from circular flow ducts and from lined engine intakes with predictions

Abstract

Sound propagation in lined circular ducts is investigated in the presence of uniform and sheared flow. The modal solutions are obtained by solving an eigenvalue equation which, in the case of sheared flow, is derived by using finite differences and by matching the pressure and the radial component of the particle velocity at the interface of the regions of uniform and sheared flow. For the uniform flow region, standard Bessel function solutions are used. The attenuation of acoustic energy at a given frequency and for a given liner length is computed on the assumption that at the inlet to the lined duct, the acoustic energy is equally distributed among the propagating modes. The total number of propagating modes is determined from the hard wall “cut off” condition. The failure to find some of the modal solutions on the attenuation computed in this way is discussed. It is shown that the reliability of this method of computing liner attenuation depends on the ability to successfully compute most of the modal solutions over a large range of frequencies, flow conditions and duct wall impedance values. A numerical technique is developed which uses a fraction of the total number of solutions to compute the total attenuations without appreciable loss of accuracy. Measured attenuation spectra from a flow duct facility and from lined intake ducts of the RB.211 engine are compared with predictions. In general very good agreement between predictions and measurements is obtained.