Vibration response of a finite airfoil under turbulent boundary layer excitation

Abstract

Turbulent boundary layers excite elastic surfaces leading to material fatigue and noise that may be transmitted into the body of a vehicle or reradiated back into the environment. Three different numerical methods, namely the spatial method, the reciprocity method and the uncorrelated wall plane wave method are employed to predict the vibration response of an airfoil excited by a turbulent boundary layer. These methods will be coupled with semi-empirical models which are used to simulate the wall pressure field beneath the turbulent boundary layer. The first method is performed in the spatial domain while the latter two are performed in the wavenumber domain. In this investigation, the efficacy of each of these will be examined when applied to a finite airfoil. The use of the two calculations will be compared to show any advantages in computational time and memory use.