Mechanism analysis of the influence of rotor-to-rotor interactions on global rotor noise

Abstract

Existing research mainly investigated the influence of rotor-to-rotor interactions on the aerodynamics performance and noise level, but did not reveal the mechanism by which loading fluctuation significantly increases the noise below the rotor. In this study, first, an acoustic modal analysis method was established by mapping the source modal domain to acoustic modal domain, to investigate the global noise generated by a twin rotor considering the rotor-to-rotor interactions. Then, it was concluded from the simulation that the rotor-to-rotor interactions have little influence on the distribution of the sound sources, while they obvious change the noise in region at high elevation angle. Next, the method proposed was verified through experiments in an anechoic chamber, and the prediction error of overall sound pressure level (OASPL) was less than 7%. Finally, acoustic modal analysis reveals that the mechanism is attributed to the high radiation efficiency of the higher-order source modal components and dominant vertical directivity pattern of new acoustic modal components. Moreover, the initial azimuth angle of the rotors has an amplitude modulation effect on those acoustic modal components. When the difference in initial azimuth angle is π/L for rotors with L blades, the new modal components generated by different rotors cancel out each other for the odd-order blade passing frequency (BPF) noises.