Reduction Of Blade-vortex Interaction Noise Research Articles

Nonharmonic Control of the Blade-Vortex Interaction Noise of Electrically Controlled Rotor

Electrically controlled rotor, also known as swashplateless rotor, represents an active rotor system that, due to the use of a trailing edge flap system instead of a swashplate, not only enables primary control but also conveniently reduces the blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise of the rotors through active control. The effect of nonharmonic inputs on the control of the BVI noise of electrically controlled rotors based on their unique trailing edge flap systems has been investigated in this paper. To this end, an analytical model for the vortex interaction-induced load and noise of electrically controlled rotor is first established based on the viscous vortex particle method, the Weissinger-L blade model, and the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equation. On this basis, a simulation study of flap nonharmonic control for BVI noise reduction in electrically controlled rotors is carried out. According to the mechanism of the BVI in electrically controlled rotors, the second quadrant flap nonharmonic control is used to reduce the advancing side BVI noise, and the effects of different control waveforms and amplitudes on the peak value and directivity of the BVI noise of the sample electrically controlled rotors are analyzed to reveal the noise reduction mechanism of flap nonharmonic control. Subsequently, the effect of the third quadrant flap nonharmonic control on BVI noise on the retreating side of the sample electrically controlled rotors is investigated. The results show that flap nonharmonic control has little effect on miss distance and that it controls BVI noise mainly by reducing the wake vortex strength on the advancing and retreating sides, which may lead to an increase in rotor noise in other regions; the noise reduction effect of flap nonharmonic control for different blade preindex angles indicates that suitable preindex angles coupled with flap nonharmonic control help optimally reduce noise.

Numerical Investigation of an Unsteady Blade Surface Blowing Method to Reduce Rotor Blade-Vortex Interaction Noise

This paper presents a numerical investigation of unsteady surface blowing using periodic variations of jet velocity with azimuthal angle to reduce helicopter rotor blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise. The unsteady blowing is modeled as the mass flow outlet boundary condition of time-varying jet velocity on the blade surface grid using computational fluid dynamics. The same high-resolution overset grid system and flow/noise solver are used to perform a detailed flow field simulation and noise prediction for the nonblowing baseline case and the steady/unsteady blowing cases under the rotor BVI condition, and a grid convergence study for the steady and unsteady blowing cases is carried out. The BVI noise reduction and rotor thrust coefficient results of the unsteady blowing method and the previously published steady blowing with constant jet velocity are then compared. The noise reduction level of unsteady blowing is approximately equivalent to that of steady blowing (noise reduction is more than 3 dB). However, the loss in rotor thrust coefficient caused by unsteady blowing (3.3%) is only half of that by steady blowing (6.3%); the air mass cost by unsteady blowing is only 63.7% of that by steady blowing per rotation revolution. The results show that unsteady blowing can effectively reduce BVI noise with lower cost and less thrust loss.

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

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.

Acoustic Aspects of Active-Twist Rotor Control

The use of an Active Twist Rotor system to provide both vibration reduction and performance enhancement has been explored in recent analytical and experimental studies. Effects of active-twist control on rotor noise, however, had not been determined. During a recent wind tunnel test of an active-twist rotor system, a set of acoustic measurements were obtained to assess the effects of active-twist control on noise produced by the rotor, especially blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise. It was found that for rotor operating conditions where BVI noise is dominant, active-twist control provided a reduction in BVI noise level. This BVI noise reduction was almost, but not quite, as large as that obtained in a similar test using HHC. However, vibration levels were usually adversely affected at operating conditions favoring minimum BVI noise. Conversely, operating conditions favoring minimum vibration levels affected BVI noise levels, but not always adversely.

Blade-vortex interaction noise reduction with active twist smart rotortechnology

The results of this analytical feasibility study suggest that activeblade twist technology is a viable means to reduce blade-vortex interaction(BVI) noise in rotorcraft systems. A linearized unsteady aerodynamics analysiswas formulated and successfully validated with computation fluid dynamics(CFD) analysis. A simple control scheme with three control points was found tobe effective for active BVI noise reduction. Based on current-day actuationtechnology where one to two degrees of twist per blade activation span isexpected, measurable noise reductions of 2-4 dB were predicted for therelatively strong, close vortex interactions. For weaker vortex interactions,reductions of 7-10 dB were predicted. The required twist actuation per bladespan for complete unsteady loading cancellation, however, may be infeasiblebecause of the large stroke and high-frequency activation requirements.

Recent studies of rotorcraft blade-vortex interaction noise

Recent results are presented from several research efforts aimed at the understanding of rotorcraft blade-vortex interaction (BVI) in terms of the noise generation, directivity, and control. The results are based on work performed by NASA Langley Research Center researchers, both alone and in collaboration with other research organizations. Based on analysis of a simplified physical model, the critical parameters controlling BVI noise generation have been identified. The detailed mapping of the acoustic radiation field of a model rotor in a wind tunnel has revealed the extreme sensitivity of directivity to rotor advance ratio and disk attitude. The control and reduction of BVI noise through the use of higher harmonic pitch control is discussed.

Reduction of blade-vortex interaction noise through porous leading edge

The effect of the porous leading edge of an airfoil on the blade-vortex interaction noise, which dominates the far-field acoustic spectrum of the helicopter, is investigated. The thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations are solved with a high-order upwind-biased scheme and a multizonal grid system. The Baldwin-Lomax turbulence model is modified for considering transpiration on the surface. The amplitudes of the propagating acoustic wave in the near field are calculated directly from the computation. The porosity effect on the surface is modeled in two ways: (1) imposition of prescribed transpiration velocity distribution and (2) calculation of transpiration velocity distribution by Darcy's law. Results show leading-edge transpiration can suppress pressure fluctuations at the leading edge during blade-vortex interaction and consequently reduce the amplitude of propagating noise by 30% at a maximum in the near field.

Parametric computational study of isolated blade-vortex interaction noise

A parametric study was performed to quantitatively describe how the vortex core size, the vortex location, and the hover-tip Mach number MH affect blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise. The effects of these parameters on BVI noise are determined using a rotor acoustic prediction program. The acoustic prediction program is based on the well-known Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings equation for acoustic pressure, wherein noncompact monopole terms model rotor blade thickness and distributed dipoles model local blade surface pressure. The dipole strengths are determined by an unsteady, three-dimensional, full-potentia l rotor code that models the aerodynamic interactions between a nonlifting rotor and a tip vortex generated by an upstream wing. The acoustic pressures were calculated for several observer positions in regions of intense acoustic radiation for a variety of blade-vortex proximities, orientations, hover-tip Mach numbers, and vortex-core sizes. This study has quantified the sensitivity of BVI noise to the dominant vortex and aerodynamic parameters. The sound pressure level (SPL) falls off as the inverse of the square of the miss distance between the vortex core and the rotor blade when the miss distance is greater than the core radius. Increasing the core radius is not as effective as increasing the miss distance when attempting to reduce BVI noise. As expected, this study shows that SPL decreases with an increase in the obliqueness of interaction. The calculations performed in this work indicate that SPL increases approximately as Af|. These results can be used to guide future research of BVI noise reduction.