The supersonic jet plumes that exhaust from the engines of tactical aircraft produce intense noise signatures that expose the Navy personnel working on the deck of aircraft carriers to dangerously high levels of noise that often results in hearing damage. Reducing the noise radiated by these supersonic plumes is of interest to the Department of Defense and is the primary motivation of this research. Fundamentally, jet noise reduction is achieved by manipulating the nozzle boundary condition to produce changes in the turbulence development and decrease the acoustic efficiency of coherent structures. The research presented here focuses on a novel jet noise reduction technique involving a centered thermal non-uniformity that alters the base flow by introducing a temperature-driven centerline velocity deficit into a perfectly expanded Mach 1.5 jet. The results indicate $2 pm 0.5$ dB reductions in peak narrowband spectral sound pressure levels upstream of peak directivity directions for the non-uniform jet compared to a thermally uniform baseline, even for static thrust matched conditions. This reduction is hypothesized to be related to perturbations induced by the thermal non-uniformity that convect inside the irrotational core and reduce the correlation length scales of turbulence at locations far downstream. This hypothesis was evaluated by studying the coherent turbulence via its convective hydrodynamic footprint in the near-field. An indirect investigation of the near-field using a far-field-informed model of the wavenumber-frequency spectra indicate a reduction in the energy contained in the tail of the wavenumber spectra amplitude, suggesting a reduction in the size of large scale structures. A direct evaluation of the spatio-temporal behavior of the near-field was performed using temporally resolved schlieren images. Space-time correlations of the frequency-filtered near-field identified high frequency acoustic waves radiated by compactly coherent turbulent structures and low frequency Mach waves produced by large scale instabilities. In the thermally non-uniform case these features and their sources were found to be decorrelated at downstream regions. These results provide strong evidence that a centered thermal non-uniformity reduces the radiated noise compared to a uniform baseline by shortening the correlation length scales of coherent structures in regions far from the nozzle exhaust. / Doctor of Philosophy / A more complete understanding of the intense noise sources present in supersonic jet plumes is of value to both government and industry, and is a necessary step towards optimizing noise reduction techniques. Tactical aircraft that operate on the deck of aircraft carriers expose Navy personnel to dangerously high levels of noise that often results in permanent hearing damage. Supersonic jet noise reduction is also of relevance to the recent efforts to revitalize supersonic air transport over land. For supersonic air transport to become a reality, the noise produced by these future aircraft during takeoff and landing must meet the increasingly stringent community noise requirements. Fundamental jet noise research is needed to guide the design of future engine architectures for these aircraft to ensure their commercial success. The research presented herein examines a novel noise reduction technique that involves a centered thermal non-uniformity consisting of a heated jet plume with a spot of locally cooler, slower moving air concentrated along the centerline of a Mach 1.5 jet. This temperature driven velocity deficit is shown to reduce the radiated noise by up to 2.5 dB at peak frequencies and at angles just outside of the peak directivity direction. The cause of the noise reduction is hypothesized be related to a reduction in the size of the coherent structures that radiate a majority of the noise produced by turbulent jets. This hypothesis is evaluated by examining the 'footprint' of the coherent structures in the ambient field directly outside of the jet shear layer in an area called the near-field. An indirect investigation of the near-field using a far-field informed analytic model suggests a reduction in the size of large scale structures. A direct evaluation of the space time structure of the near-field was performed using temporally resolved schlieren images. Statistical processing of the density gradient provided by the schlieren images revealed acoustically intense structures known as Mach waves and high frequency acoustic waves. These features and their sources, large scale instabilities and compactly coherent turbulence, were found to be decorrelated by the introduction of the thermal non-uniformity. These results provide strong evidence that the centered thermal non-uniformity produces a noise benefit by reducing the size of the turbulent structures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/95942 |
| Date | 04 December 2019 |
| Creators | Daniel, Kyle Andreas |
| Contributors | Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Ng, Wing Fai, Lowe, K. Todd, Burdisso, Ricardo A., Alexander, William Nathan, Devenport, William J. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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