On the generation and propagation of multiple pure tones inside turbofans at transonic regime

Abstract

Whereas the sound radiated from the inlet of turbofans is mainly due to rotor-stator interactions in approach flight, the shock waves (or N-waves) emitted by the rotor at transonic rotation speeds can be a dominant noise source during takeoff and climb. The study of N-waves needs to take account of two main processes: (i) The generation of Nwaves for a perfect rotor (where all blades are identical) and for a real rotor (considering small geometrical blade dispersion); (ii) The N-wave propagation through the inlet duct producing the blade passing harmonics for a perfect rotor, and the multiple pure tones (harmonics of the rotation frequency) for a real rotor. Several approaches have been investigated for the past forty years. This paper intends to cross-check the main methods by applying them to two modern turbofan demonstrators. Moreover, a prospective way of N-wave generation based on geometrical considerations is investigated thanks to test data related to pressure signal and blade stagger angle measurements during the engine rotation. This prediction overcomes some drawbacks of other methods. Moreover, it appears to be very efficient to build rotor blade orderings that reduce the sound pressure level of the multiple pure tones.

Identification of Aerodynamic Tonal Noise Sources of a Centrifugal Compressor of a Turbocharger for Large Stationary Engines

“…The resulting acoustic character can be observed in the form of tonal sounds at integer multiples of the rotational frequency; thus, it is a super-harmonic type of noise. These conclusions were also stated by Sharma et al [39], Raitor and Neise [28] and Thisse et al [40]. The description of buzz-saw noise is still a current research topic, as this type of noise is dominant in aircraft engines.…”

Nonlinear Propagation of Supersonic Fan Tones in Turbofan Intake Ducts

“…It has been shown that this type of model can capture the main features of this pressure field [12][13][14], and propagation of input one-dimensional waveforms generated from measurements close to the fan [11,15] or by means of blade stagger angles values [16] show the reliability of the one-dimensional approximation of the pressure field. Prasad [17] compared the results based on such an approximation against three-dimensional numerical simulations and assessed the effect of the radial span of the pressure field.…”