Wake-body interaction Noise Simulations by Coupling CFD and BEM

Abstract

In many engineering applications, the wake-body interaction or body-vortex interaction (BVI) occurs. In the wake-body interaction, vortices shed from an upstream obstacle interact with downstream obstacle and generate noise, for example blades in a turbomachinery, tubes in a heat exchanger, rotating blades like a helicopter and wind turbine and so on. The rod-airfoil and airfoil-airfoil configurations are typical models for the wake-body interaction. A rod and an airfoil are immersed upstream of the airfoil. In this paper, we reviewed the noise mechanism generated by the wake-body interaction and show the numerical results obtained by the coupling method using commercial CFD and acoustic BEM codes. The results shows that depending on the spacing between the rod or airfoil and the airfoil, the flow patterns and noise radiation vary. With small spacing, the vortex shedding from the upstream obstacle is suppressed and it results in the suppression of the sound generation. With large spacing, the shear layer or the vortices shed from the upstream obstacle impinge on the downstream obstacle and it results in the large sound generation. The dominant peak frequency of the generated sound varies with increasing of the spacing between the two obstacles.