On the acoustics of a circulation control airfoil

A two-dimensional elliptical circulation control airfoil model is studied in the Florida State Aeroacoustic Tunnel. Far-field acoustics are obtained via a 55 microphone phased array. Single microphone spectra are also obtained, and it is shown that background noise is significant. In order to circumvent this problem, beamforming is employed. The primary sources of background noise are from the tunnel collector and jet/sidewall interaction. The deconvolution approach to mapping acoustic sources (DAMAS) is employed to remove the effects of the array point spread function. Spectra are acquired by integrating the DAMAS result over the source region. The resulting DAMAS spectral levels are significantly below single microphone levels. Although the DAMAS levels are reduced from those of a single microphone or delay and sum beamforming (DAS), they are still above those of a NACA 0012, estimated using NAFNoise, at the same geometric and free-stream conditions. A scaling analysis is performed on the processed array data. With a constant free-stream velocity and a varying jet velocity the data scale as jet Mach number to the 6th power. If the momentum coefficient is held constant and the free-stream velocity is varied the data scale as free-stream Mach number to the 7th power.