In this paper, an experimental characterisation of low Reynolds number rotors is performed in an anechoic room. Two commercially available two-bladed rotors as well as four three-dimensional (3D)-printed rotors with different numbers of blades (from two to five) are tested. The latter have canonical geometry, with an NACA0012 blade section profile, extruded in the radial direction with constant chord and constant 10° pitch. The experimental setup and the 3D printing strategy are first validated using results from the literature for the commercially available rotors. For all the tested rotors, four noise characteristics are analysed: the overall sound pressure level (OASPL), the amplitude of the blade passing frequency (BPF), and the amplitude of its first harmonic and the high-frequency broadband noise. For all the rotors, an increase in all noise characteristics is observed with the rotational speed (rpm) for all directivity angles. Moreover, an interesting change of pattern is observed for the amplitudes of the BPF and of its first harmonic, with, in the vicinity of the rotor plane, a minimum value for low rpm and/or high number of blades, and a maximum value for high rpm and/or low number of blades. This change in directivity leads to a similar change of directivity of the OASPL. For the broadband noise, a dipole-like pattern is obtained with a minimum value at θ=−10°, i.e., aligned with the trailing edge and thus indicating the generation of trailing edge noise. Finally, scaling laws that characterise the amplitude of the different noise components with respect to the rpm are proposed.

Nearfield Acoustic Holography (NAH) is a powerful acoustic imaging method, but its application in aeronautics can be limited by intrusive measurements of acoustic field. In this paper, a moving fluid medium NAH procedure using non-intrusive velocity measurements is proposed. This method is based on convective Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral formula. Convective equations and convective Green's function are used to derive convective real-space propagators including airflow effects. Discrete Fourier transforms of these propagators allow the assessment of acoustic fields from acoustic pressure or normal acoustic velocity measurements. As the aim is to derive an in-flow velocity-based NAH method, this study is especially focused on real convective velocity-to-pressure propagator. In order to validate this procedure, simulations in the case of monopole sources radiating in various uniform subsonic flows have been performed. NAH provides very favorable results when compared to the simulated fields. A comparison of results obtained by the real propagator and those obtained by the wave number-frequency-domain one developed by Kwon et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 128(4), 1823-1832 (2010)] shows the interest of using the real-form in the case of pressure backward propagation from velocity measurements. The efficiency of the developed procedure is confirmed by a wind tunnel campaign with a flush-mounted loudspeaker and non-intrusive Laser Doppler Velocimetry velocity measurements.

No abstract

No abstract