When less is more: Reducing environmental noise from open cycle gas turbines with acoustically transparent stacks

Abstract

Sound radiation from large open cycle gas turbine power stations is strongly refracted by high temperature and velocity gradients in the near field of the exhaust stack outlet. Recent research by the authors has shown that in the presence of a cross-flow, the exhaust plume bends downwind and in doing so leads to significant increases in far-field sound pressure levels of up to 10dB compared to levels predicted from spherical spreading. This paper is the second in a series that explores a unique “acoustically transparent silencer,” which limits sound refraction consequently reducing downwind SPLs by separating the sound from the bulk exhaust flow. The efficacy of the approach is demonstrated two ways; initial characterization studies conducted in the reverberation chambers at the newly renovated Acoustic and Vibration Laboratory, University of Adelaide, and subsequent trials undertaken on a laboratory scale of 250 kW gas turbine in the field. Numerous designs are explored to quantify the effective insertion loss, where it will be shown as the transmission loss of the stack walls is reduced, the effective insertion loss increases, thus demonstrating that less is more. Reductions in ground-plane SPLs of up to 10 dB are achieved with less material and weight compared to traditional hard-walled stacks.