University of Manchester

School of Mechanical Aerospace & Civil Engineering

General Aspects of Aircraft Noise

By:
JUAN MANUEL CRUZ MONTERROSAS

Manchester-United Kingdom 08 / 06 / 2015

Contents
State of the Art........................................................................................................................................ 2
Aircraft noise generation. ....................................................................................................................... 3
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 10

State of the Art

The noise could be annoying, in relationship with the toleration of the person that its hearing. And,
as we know the problems involved by the aircraft noise are focused in some health and noise
pollution related effect. For this reason, the academy and industry need to reduce the noise
generated by the aircraft. However the problem doesnt get attention until the 1995. Even when it
was already identify in the 1970s. By the necessity of increase the size of the airports or create news
for the increasing demand of air traffic [1] [2].
There are some associations like the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) that regulate
the noise emission in the airports. This its a complex problem that involves different part of the
Aircraft. Therefore, the new airplanes that are in development are going to have better
improvements in the noise reduction in every part, starting with the engine until airframe. But, what
happen with the old airplanes? Can we continue using it? Its for this reason that the researchers
needs to archive noise reduction in the existing airplanes.
The aircraft noise starts to get attention with the development of the turbine engine. This engine
only was used for long trips and produces a lot of noise. But the demand of the flights starts to
increase. And the manufacturers of the airplanes developed small airplanes with jet turbine that can
carry more weight in short time. As a consequence, the different organizations developed new
regulations in the early 1960s. Therefore, the owners of airports were forced to establish a noise
level that the aircrafts cant exceed. [3] For the next years the problem was focused in decrease the
noise produced by the engines and left behind the noise produced by the airframe. Although, at the
beginning of the turbofan engine this change [4] [5]. As a result, a number of experiments realized
under the patronage of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) were realized with the participation of
many industrial companies. As a result, these experiments that were realized between 1974 and
1978, were identified the principal source of airframe noise and dependence of the aircraft speed [6]
[7].
As we read in the previous paragraph, during 1970s the airplane noise emitted by airframe starts to
get attention from some researchers [1]. Consequently, the first semiempirical airframe noise
prediction method was created by Fink [8]. Actually, the classical rank order of priority for
commercial airframe noise as follows: landing gears, slotted slats, flap and slat side edges, flap and
slat tracks, spoilers, and component interaction noise sources. [8]

During the first researches all the work was empirical and they realized that the noise produced by
deflection of the flaps was assumed to vary directly with flap area, inversely with far field distance
squared, and directly with airspeed to the sixth power [9].
At the last years of the past century the German national program on airframe noise reduction was
started [10], and great goal has been acquired, not only by this program. For example the
publication of the Airframe noise reduction challenge [11] at the beginning of the new century
produce an increase in the efforts to decrease the noise generated by the airframe. And a new
Aircraft noise prediction program (ANOPP2) its in development [12].
The Airframe noise prediction methods are divided in four categories, and are exposed in order of
complexity: fully numerical methods, CFD methods coupled with the acoustic analogy, fully
analytical methods and semi-empirical methods [13]. This field was leaded by empirical experiments,
even when this has limited physics [2].
Actually, the high-lift devices (that its integrated by trailing edge flaps and leading edge slats)
increase the overall airframe noise level on the landing approach by about 10 dB and its one of the
most important parts of aerodynamic noise [1] [3] [14] [15]. Accordingly, there are three items of
research interest in the high-lift system: trailing-edge noise, flap-edge noise and leading-edge slat
noise [2].
At the beginning of the 2000s Guo [16] develop an analytical model for the study of flap fences on
the flow and he archive data that show a possible reduction of noise generated by the flap-edge.
But, he is not the only one that develops a research in this particular part of the high-lift device; also
and more recently Angland and Zhang [17] found a high frequency noise reduction in the flap side
edge with a porous material. The same that Plata and Martini [18], resulting in the immediate
change from a structure jet-like (higher speed in the core) to a wake-like (lower speed in the
core) structure by the addition of a plate porous material in the edge-flap. In all the cases the
authors recommend continue with more study of the noise generation.

Aircraft noise generation and prediction models.

As we know the unsteady flow in the vicinity of an edge is an important source of aerodynamic
sound [19].

The unsteady motion in the neighbourhood of a side edge is related to the presence of a component
of mean flow about the edge. This flow results in the formation of a conventional tip vortex due to
forward motion of a lifting airfoil, and is from the lower (pressure) to the upper (suction) surfaces of
the flap, a separation bubble often being formed on the upper surface at the edge [20]. Hardin [21]
idealize a two-dimensional theory for the generation of noise by the side-edge mechanism,
considering a flow inhomogeneity in the form of a chord wise orientated line vortex. Also Hardin
argued that under a wide range of conditions, likely to be encountered in practice, the noise
generated during the motion of the vortex around the side edge could be significantly greater than
that produced by an equal vortex convecting in a mean boundary layer flow past a trailing edge.
Howe propose a theory in which permits one to estimate the importance of proximity effects on the
side-edge noise sources and, in addition, the influence of varying the forward flight speed of the
aircraft [20]. To do this the trailing edge of the wing is modelled by means of a thin, rigid half-plane
in the clean configuration. When a part-span flap is deployed the gap between the side-edge of
the flap and the undeflected portion of the neighbouring trailing edge is represented by means of a
narrow slot in the half-plane which is at right angles to the trailing edge.
The length of this slot is equal to the chord of the flap, and the width is taken to be equal to the
mean distance between the side edges of the flap and the adjacent undeflected wing (see Figure 1).
The spanwise edge flow resulting from the additional lift generated by the flap is depicted
schematically in Figure 1 (c). In using this model to calculate the radiated sound, the finite angle of
deflection of the flap is neglected, except in so far as it determines the magnitude of the mean flow
velocity about the side edge. This approximation should be adequate for moderate angles of
deflection, say of the order of 10 degrees, in which case the spanwise component of the mean
velocity on the upper surface close to the side edge is typically of order 20% - 30% of U; U being the
forward flight speed [22].
In other research Guo [23] modelled two components of the flap side-edge noise, respectively for
the low and high frequency domain and corresponding to two noise generation mechanisms in the
flap side edge flows. The high frequency noise mostly comes from the flow separation near the
sharp corners of the flap, mainly in the forward half of the flap chord, and the low frequency noise is
largely due to the interactions between the large scale vortex structure and the sharp corners of the
flap, occurring in the mid and aft half chord length of the flap where the vortex is well established
with significant vertical energy to be scattered into sound by the corners.

Figure 1: (a) The "clean" trailing edge is represented analytically by means of a semi-infinite rigid plate in a mean flow at
speed U; (b) the side edge gap formed when a part-span flap pf chord L is developed is modelled by a rectangular slot
whose width 2s is equal to the mean width of the side edge gap; (c) view of the slotted half-plane from downstream; in
calculating the noise the finite angle of deployment of the flap is neglected; the flap occupies the region (-L<x1<0,
x2=0,x3>s) [22].

The two flow features mentioned in the past paragraph involves different noise generation physics,
and hence, generate sound fields of different characteristics; they contribute in different frequency
domains due to their different length scales, their noise fields have different dependencies on the
mean flow Mach number, their far fields follow different directivity patterns, and they are correlated
to the flap side edge flow by different scaling laws. In various experiments we observe the features
mentioned [24] [25].
Guo [23] explains the processes that occur in the generation of vortices from the sharp corners of
the flap due to flow separation in the form of highly curved shear layers. The shear layers are
inherently unstable so that they quickly rollup into small vortices after being shed from the corners.
This unsteady process mostly occurs in the forward half of the flap chord and involves length scales
on the order of the local flap thickness. Thus, the noise due to the vortex shedding is mostly of high
frequencies, scaled on the flap thickness.

Figure 2: Example of the vortex structures at the outboard edge of the outboard flap for the Boeing 777 aircraft [23].

In this way, the noise due to the vortex shedding is mostly of high frequencies, scaled on the flap
thickness. Because of the cross flow in the flap side edge region, the vortices move in both the
stream-wise direction and the cross flow direction around the side edge. As they do so, the vortices
merge with each other to form a large vortex structure in the aft half of the flap chord. The large
vortex structure interacts with the sharp flap corners, scattering vortical energy into sound. This flow
process occurs mostly in the mid to aft half flap chord and scales on the flap chord length. As a
result, the interactions between the vortex and the flap corners mainly contribute to low and mid
frequency noise. The rollup vortex structures have been researched and captured in various
experimental and numerical studies. An example is shown in Figure 2, which plots the vorticity
magnitude distributions at the outboard edge of the outboard flap for the Boeing 777 aircraft,
computed from a mean flow computation using standard CFD method for the case of aircraft angle
of attach at 6.2 degrees, flight Mach number of 0.25 and the flap angle of 37.5 degrees, all of which
are typical values for landing configurations [23]. Both the small scale separation in the forward half
chord and the large vortex in the aft half chord are clearly seen in this figure.
Guo found the different noise characteristics for the two frequency components and are further
shown in Figure 3 which plots the flap side edge noise spectra for the DC-10 aircraft at three
different Mach numbers, as a function of the 1/3 octave band centre frequency. It is found that the
low frequency noise scales on the fifth power law and the high frequency noise on the sixth power
law, as demonstrated in Figure 4 which plots flap side edge noise data for the DC-10 aircraft, in the
form of normalized overall noise levels as a function of the polar angle under the flyover plane. For
the low frequency noise, the interactions between the large vortex structure and the sharp corners
are the main source so that the Mach number scaling follows the well-known sharp edge scattering
phenomenon that scales on the mean flow Mach number by the fifth power law. For high frequency
noise, the main sources are the local flow separation, namely, the fluctuations of the small vortices,
which scales on the sixth power law on flow Mach number.

Figure 3: Flap side edge noise spectra and Mach number dependence for the DC-10 aircraft [23].

Figure 4: Flap side edge noise directivity and Mach number dependence for the DC-10 aircraft [23].

The flap side edge noise can be modeled as two spectral components, one from the flow separation
at the side edge corners downstream of the flap leading edge and the other from the vortex/edge
interactions in the after half chord of the flap [23]. The characteristic length associated with the flow
separation and shear layer instabilities scales on the flap thickness, and that associated with
vortex/edge interaction scales on the flap chord. Thus, the two components are respectively for high
and low frequencies.
Molin considers the instability of two detached shear layer as the source of high frequency
broadband noise generated on the flap side-edge [26]. And these two vortices merge further
downstream to form a single side-edge vortex.
The flap side-edge vortex was identified as a low frequency source radiated by interaction with the
flap surface, mainly the suction surface close to the trailing-edge. This low frequency noise source
was associated with the upper surface at the attachment line where the post-merged vortex
impinged on the flap upper surface. Another low frequency noise source was associated with
instabilities in the vortical structure itself in the streamwise direction. This was broadband in nature
over a range of 1 10 kHz (2.4 stf 24). A noise mechanism was associated with vortex bursting
that was broadband and had tonal features at high frequencies [27].
Sound generated from dipole and quadrupole sources close to a sharp edge follows a scaling law
of 5. In the absence of a sharp edge they would radiate proportional to 6 and 8 respectively
[28]. The Brooks and Hodgson formula, which is based on a flat plate at zero incidences with a sharp
trailing-edge, gives the far field intensity as:

5 ( )5 0
2
2
2 3

Where the fluctuation in velocity near the sharp edge is , its the distance from the trailing-edge
to the observer and 0 is the corresponding correlation length of the acoustic source near the sharp
edge. This formula has no angular dependencies and ignores Doppler effects associated with

convection. Brooks and Hodgson used the boundary layer displacement thickness at the sharp
edge for the correlation length. This relationship shows that the noise emitted is proportional to the
volume of turbulence crossing the sharp edge. Possible noise reduction methods would be to reduce
the volume to turbulence convecting past the sharp edge and to change the scattering by modifying
the sharp edge [29].
Hardin [21] suggested that turbulence in the boundary layer that was convected around the sideedge was responsible for noise production. The magnitude of sound radiation was related to the
strength of vorticity of the convected flow and its distance from the sharp edge. Turbulence
convected past a sharp edge follows a 5 scaling law. However, in the measurements performed by
Meadows [30], the scaling law was found to be 5.5or higher at high frequencies. Since vortex
merging and breakdown are low frequency phenomenon, this led the authors to conclude that shear
layer instabilities were responsible for the bulk of the concentrated audible noise generation [30].
In one of the latest researches, Rossignol [31] elaborate an empirical noise prediction model
applicable in the early development stage of low-noise aircraft. He elaborates a series of
aeroacoustics tests to investigate the characteristics of flap side-edge noise. Rossignol founds that
the isolated flap (without main element) exhibits a distinctive noise directivity which varies with
frequency and which possesses a principal radiation plane roughly aligned perpendicularly to the
model chord. These results corresponds with the work of Miller [32], and the theoretical predictions
of Howe [20], in which an emission pattern having a baffled dipole character with an enhanced noise
emission in the forward arc. And the maximal noise levels are measured approximately at the sideview position.

Reduction of the airframe noise.

During the last four decades the reduction of the airframe noise has been the Holy Grail of the
researchers in this subject. Some of them had reach important success by different methods in the
last two decades. For example, Guo [16] present an analytical model for the study of the effects of
flap fences on the flows in the flap side edge regions and their acoustic radiation. Having as a result
that those fences can achieve reduction of flap-related noise by shifting the source spectra
downward in frequency. Some analytical prediction for the frequency shift was given to agree with
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data quite satisfactorily. And, the fences might also reduce noise by weakening the amplitudes of
the source flow. However, Guo doesnt discussed this because the limited tests that he develop, also
Filippone [2] argue that this potentially important method, have not found adoption into a
comprehensive noise model.
Other experiments that have relevance in the reduction of noise generated by the High-Lift device
by porous treatments are set out below:
Chow [33] had achieved noise reduction by replacing a part of the flap side edge with brushes and
an open cell porous edge. A noise reduction of up to 4 dB in the far field was reported, within a
limited band of frequencies, but Chow doesnt discuss the physics involved.
Choudhari [34] performed a computational study of a porous flap side edge as a passive means of
flap noise reduction. Its not possible to translate the flow alterations into accompanying reductions
in sound pressure level, because Choudhari doesnt model the near-field unsteadiness.
Revell [35] performed a series of experiments investigating a porous acoustic treatment applied to a
trailing-edge flap. Phased microphone array measurements were used to determine the reduction
achieved. The mechanisms proposed for the reduction of flap side-edge noise were dissipation and
modification of the vortex. The mean flow was modified due to the permeation velocity through the
porous material, which interfered with the fluctuating vortex causing some cancellation. The porous
material also had a damping effect on the pressure fluctuations due to its finite impedance [17].
Other experiments that have relevance in the reduction of noise in the flap-edge are with porous
edge treatments [17], [18].

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