Airframe noise measurements in a large hard-walled closed-section wind tunnel

Abstract

The airframe noise of a 1:2 scaled aircraft model is investigated through a series of experiments in the hard walled closed test section of a large non-anechoic wind tunnel. A surface mounted phased microphone array is used to acquire the wall pressure fluctuations generated by the interaction of the wind tunnel flow and the propagating noise. Data from two measurement campaigns are analysed. The wind tunnel acoustic behaviour and the array performance are first assessed evaluating the results obtained from a reference sound source installed in the centre of the test section. The combination of different airflow speeds, array positions and sound sources are tested. The airframe noise is evaluated acquiring pressure fluctuations in different configurations. The main parameters varied during the tests are the flight configuration, the speed of the airflow, the incidence angle of the model and the position of the microphone array. Data are processed and then analysed in the frequency domain and using a conventional beamforming algorithm to retrieve the sound source maps over the regions of interest. Source maps are deconvolved with a CLEAN-SC routine and single source contributions determined through integration of auto-powers. The resulting spectra are finally scaled determining the exponents of the pertinent scaling laws.