Numerical analysis on noise of rotor with unconventional blade tips based on CFD/Kirchhoff method

A solver is developed aiming at efficiently predicting rotor noise in hover and forward flight. In this solver, the nonlinear near-field solutions are calculated by a hybrid approach which includes the Navier–Stokes and Euler equations based on a moving-embedded grid system and adaptive grid methodology. A combination of the third-order upwind scheme and flux-difference splitting scheme, instead of the second-order center-difference scheme which may cause larger wake dissipation, has been employed in the present computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The sound pressure data in the near field can be calculated directly by solving the Navier–Stokes equations, and the sound propagation can be predicted by the Kirchhoff method. A harmonic expansion approach is presented for rotor far-field noise prediction, which gives an analytical expression for the integral function in the Kirchhoff formula. As a result, the interpolation process is simplified and the efficiency and accuracy of the interpolation are improved. Then, the high-speed impulsive (HIS) noise of a helicopter rotor at different tip Mach numbers and on different observers is calculated and analyzed in hover and forward flight, which shows a highly directional characteristic of the rotor HIS noise with a maximum value in the rotor plane, and the HSI noise weakens rapidly with the increasing of the directivity angle. In order to investigate the effects of the rotor blade-tip shape on its aeroacoustic characteristics, four kinds of blade tips are designed and their noise characteristics have been simulated. At last, a new unconventional CLOR-II blade tip has been designed, and the noise characteristics of the presented CLOR-II model rotor have been simulated and measured compared to the reference rotors with a rectangular or swept-back platform blade tip. The results demonstrate that the unconventional CLOR-II blade tip can significantly reduce the HSI noise of a rotor.