Experimental Study of Active Techniques for Blade/Vortex Interaction Noise Reduction

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental results of the effect of Higher Harmonic Control (HHC) and Active Flap on the Blade/Vortex Interaction (BVI) noise. Wind tunnel tests were performed with a 1-bladed rotor system to evaluate the simplified BVI phenomenon avoiding the complicated aerodynamic interference which is characteristically and inevitably caused by a multi-bladed rotor. Another merit to use this 1-bladed rotor system is that the several objective active techniques can be evaluated under the same condition installed in the same rotor system. The effects of the active techniques on the BVI noise reduction were evaluated comprehensively by the sound pressure, the blade/vortex miss distance obtained by Laser light Sheet (LLS), the blade surface pressure distribution and the tip vortex structure by Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). The correlation among these quantities to describe the effect of the active techniques on the BVI conditions is well obtained. The experiments show that the blade/vortex miss distance is more dominant for BVI noise than the other two BVI governing factors, such as blade lift and vortex strength at the moment of BVI.