Advanced modeling of active control of fan noise for ultra high bypass turbofan engines

TR Number
Date
1999-10-14
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Virginia Tech
Abstract

An advanced model of active control of fan noise for ultra high bypass turbofan engines has been developed. This model is based on a boundary integral equation method and simulates the propagation, radiation and control of the noise generated by an engine fan surrounded by a duct of finite length and cylindrical shape, placed in a uniform flow. Control sources, modeled by point monopoles placed along the wall of the engine inlet or outlet duct, inject anti-noise into the duct to destructively interfere with the sound field generated by the fan. The duct inner wall can be lined or rigid. Unlike current methods, reflection from the duct openings is taken into account, as well as the presence of the evanescent modes. Forward, as well as backward (i.e., from the rear of the engine), external radiation is computed.

The development of analytical expressions for the sound field resulting from both the fan loading noise and the control sources is presented. Two fan models are described. The first model uses spinning line sources with radially distributed strength to model the loading force that the fan blades exert on the medium. The second model uses radial arrays of spinning point dipoles to simulate the generation of fan modes of specific modal amplitudes. It is shown that these fan models can provide a reasonable approximation of actual engine fan noise in the instance when the modal amplitude of the propagating modes or the loading force distribution on the fan blades, is known.

Sample cases of active noise control are performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the model. The results from these tests indicate that this model 1) is conducive to more realistic studies of active control of fan noise on ultra high bypass turbofan engines because it accounts for the presence of evanescent modes and for interference between inlet and outlet radiation, which were shown to have some impact on the performance of the active control system; 2) is very useful because it allows monitoring of any region of the acoustic field; 3) is computationally fast, and therefore suitable to conduct parametric studies.

Finally, the potential that active noise control techniques have for reducing fan noise on an ultra high bypass turbofan engine is investigated. Feedforward control algorithms are simulated. Pure active control techniques, as well as hybrid (active/passive) control techniques, are studied. It is demonstrated that active noise control has the potential to reduce substantially, and over a relatively large far field sector, the fan noise radiated by an ultra high bypass turbofan engine. It is also shown that a hybrid control system can achieve significantly better levels of noise reduction than a pure passive or pure active control system, and that its optimum solution is more robust than the one achieved with a pure active control system.

The model has shown to realistically predict engine acoustic behavior and is thus likely to be a very useful tool for designing active noise control systems for ultra high bypass turbofan engines.

Description
Keywords
turbofan engine, fan noise, active control
Citation