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At least 73 records · Page 4

Inlet Noise Reduction by Shielding for the Blended-Wing-Body Airplane

Noise shielding benefits associated with an advanced unconventional subsonic transport concept, the Blended-Wing-Body, were studied using a 4- percent scale, 3-engine nacelle model. The study was conducted in the Anechoic Noise Research Facility at NASA Langley Research Center. A high- frequency, wideband point source was placed inside the nacelles of the center engine and one of the side engines in order to simulate broadband engine noise. The sound field of the model was measured with a rotating microphone array that was moved to various stations along the model axis and with a fixed array of microphones that was erected behind the model. Ten rotating microphones were traversed a total of 22 degrees in 2-degree increments. Seven fixed microphones covered an arc that extended from a point in the exhaust exit plane of the center engine (and directly below its centerline) to a point 30 degrees above the jet centerline. While no attempt was made to simulate the noise emission characteristics of an aircraft engine, the model source was intended to radiate sound in a frequency range encompassing 1, 2, and 3 times the blade passage of a typical full-scale engine. In this study, the Blended-Wing-Body model was found to provide significant shielding of inlet noise. In particular, noise radiated downward into the forward sector was reduced by 20 to 25 dB overall in the full-scale frequencies from 2000 to 4000 Hz, decreasing to 10 dB or less at the lower frequencies. Also, it was observed that noise associated with the exhaust radiates into the sector directly below the model downstream to reduce shielding efficiency.

Clark, Lorenzo R.↗

Effect of external pressure environment on the internal noise level due to a source inside a cylindrical tank

A small cylindrical tank was used to study the effect on the noise environment within a tank of conditions of atmospheric (sea level) pressure or vacuum environments on the exterior. Experimentally determined absorption coefficients were used to calculate transmission loss, transmissibility coefficients and the sound pressure (noise) level differences in the interior. The noise level differences were also measured directly for the two exterior environments and compared to various analytical approximations with limited agreement. Trend study curves indicated that if the tank transmission loss is above 25 dB, the difference in interior noise level between the vacuum and ambient pressure conditions are less than 2 dB.

Clevenson, S. A.↗

Generalized wave envelope analysis of sound propagation in ducts with stepped noise source profiles and variable axial impedance

A finite difference formulation is presented for sound propagation in a rectangular two-dimensional duct without steady flow. Before the difference equations are formulated, the governing Helmholtz equation is first transformed to a form whose solution tends not to oscillate along the length of the duct. This transformation reduces the required number of grid points by an order of magnitude. Example solutions indicate that stepped noise source profiles have much higher attenuation than plane waves in a uniform impedance liner. Also, multiple stepped impedance liners are shown to have higher attenuation than uniform ducts if the impedances are chosen properly. For optimum noise reduction with axial variations in impedance, the numerical analysis indicates that for a plane wave input the resistance should be near zero at the entrance of a suppressor duct, while the reactance should be near the optimum value associated with the least-attenuated mode in a uniform duct.

Baumeister, K. J.↗

Effects of sound level fluctuations on annoyance caused by aircraft-flyover noise

A laboratory experiment was conducted to determine the effects of variations in the rate and magnitude of sound level fluctuations on the annoyance caused by aircraft-flyover noise. The effects of tonal content, noise duration, and sound pressure level on annoyance were also studied. An aircraft-noise synthesis system was used to synthesize 32 aircraft-flyover noise stimuli representing the factorial combinations of 2 tone conditions, 2 noise durations, 2 sound pressure levels, 2 level fluctuation rates, and 2 level fluctuation magnitudes. Thirty-two test subjects made annoyance judgements on a total of 64 stimuli in a subjective listening test facility simulating an outdoor acoustic environment. Variations in the rate and magnitude of level fluctuations were found to have little, if any, effect on annoyance. Tonal content, noise duration, sound pressure level, and the interaction of tonal content with sound pressure level were found to affect the judged annoyance significantly. The addition of tone corrections and/or duration corrections significantly improved the annoyance prediction ability of noise rating scales.

Mccurdy, D. A.↗

Aircraft wing trailing-edge noise

The mechanism and sound pressure level of the trailing-edge noise for two-dimensional turbulent boundary layer flow was examined. Experiment is compared with current theory. A NACA 0012 airfoil of 0.61 m chord and 0.46 m span was immersed in the laminar flow of a low turbulence open jet. A 2.54 cm width roughness strip was placed at 15 percent chord from the leading edge on both sides of the airfoil as a boundary layer trip so that two separate but statistically equivalent turbulent boundary layers were formed. Tests were performed with several trailing-edge geometries with the upstream velocity U sub infinity ranging from a value of 30.9 m/s up to 73.4 m/s. Properties of the boundary layer for the airfoil and pressure fluctuations in the vicinity of the trailing-edge were examined. A scattered pressure field due to the presence of the trailing-edge was observed and is suggested as a possible sound producing mechanism for the trailing-edge noise.

Underwood, R. L.↗

Jet Surface Interaction-Scrubbing Noise

Generation of sound due to scrubbing of a jet flow past a nearby solid surface is investigated within the framework of the generalized acoustic analogy theory. The analysis applies to the boundary layer noise generated at and near a wall, and excludes the scattered noise component that is produced at the leading or the trailing edge. While compressibility effects are relatively unimportant at very low Mach numbers, frictional heat generation and thermal gradient normal to the surface could play important roles in generation and propagation of sound in high speed jets of practical interest. A general expression is given for the spectral density of the far-field sound as governed by the variable density Pridmore- Brown equation. The propagation Green's function should be solved numerically starting with the boundary conditions on the surface and subject to specified mean velocity and temperature profiles between the surface and the observer. The equivalent sources of aerodynamic sound are associated with non-linear momentum flux and enthalpy flux terms that appear in the linearized Navier-Stokes equations. These multi-pole sources should be modeled and evaluated with input from a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver with an appropriate turbulence model.

Khavaran, Abbas↗

On the Characterization and Mitigation of Noise in Space-borne Microwave Sounding Instruments

Space-borne microwave sounding instruments have become vital data sources for weather prediction and climate change studies. Among the various radiometer configurations, the total power microwave radiometer is particularly appealing for current and future operational satellites due to its superior sensitivity and simple design. However, its performance is vulnerable to degradation caused by receiver gain fluctuations, electronic 1/f noise, and other time varying receiver characteristics. For Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) users, 1/f noise introduces inter-channel correlations, complicating the assimilation of affected observations and reducing their accuracy. Addressing this noise issue in ground data processing system is essential to enhance the utility of microwave sounding data. This paper focuses on the characterization and mitigation of noise in current and future microwave sounding instruments, with particular emphasis on the impact of 1/f noise. Various methods are applied to quantitatively characterize noise features in both frequency and time domains. Additionally, the influence of calibration parameters on 1/f noise are analyzed. Based on these findings, we propose a mitigation algorithm for reducing noise during the on-orbit calibration of microwave sounding instruments, aiming to improve the quality of retrieved data for operational use.

calibration↗

Calculations of Wall Effects on Propeller Noise

Reverberations affect sound levels in wind tunnels. Report describes calculations of acoustic field of propeller in wind tunnel having walls of various degrees of softness. Understanding provided by this and related studies necessary for correct interpretation of wind-tunnel measurements of noise generated by high speed, highly loaded, multiple-blade turbopropellers.

Baumeister, Kenneth J.↗

Monotonic Gaussian Process for Physics-Constrained Machine Learning With Materials Science Applications

Physics-constrained machine learning is emerging as an important topic in the field of machine learning for physics. One of the most significant advantages of incorporating physics constraints into machine learning methods is that the resulting model requires significantly less data to train. By incorporating physical rules into the machine learning formulation itself, the predictions are expected to be physically plausible. Gaussian process (GP) is perhaps one of the most common methods in machine learning for small datasets. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of constraining a GP formulation with monotonicity on three different material datasets, where one experimental and two computational datasets are used. The monotonic GP is compared against the regular GP, where a significant reduction in the posterior variance is observed. The monotonic GP is strictly monotonic in the interpolation regime, but in the extrapolation regime, the monotonic effect starts fading away as one goes beyond the training dataset. Imposing monotonicity on the GP comes at a small accuracy cost, compared to the regular GP. The monotonic GP is perhaps most useful in applications where data are scarce and noisy, and monotonicity is supported by strong physical evidence.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Aero-acoustic design and test of a multiple splitter exhaust noise suppressor for a 0.914m diameter lift fan

A lift fan exhaust suppression system to meet future VTOL aircraft noise goals was designed and tested. The test vehicle was a 1.3 pressure ratio, 36 inch (91.44 cm) diameter lift fan with two chord rotor to stator spacing. A two splitter fan exhaust suppression system thirty inches (76.2 cm) long achieved 10 PNdB exhaust suppression in the aft quadrant compared to a design value of 20 PNdB. It was found that a broadband noise floor limited the realizable suppression. An analytical investigation of broadband noise generated by flow over the treatment surfaces provided very good agreement with the measured suppression levels and noise floor sound power levels. A fan thrust decrement of 22% was measured for the fully suppressed configuration of which 11.1% was attributed to the exhaust suppression hardware.

Stimpert, D. L.↗

Microwave limb sounder

Trace gases in the upper atmosphere can be measured by comparing spectral noise content of limb soundings with the spectral noise content of cold space. An offset Cassegrain antenna system and tiltable input mirror alternately look out at the limb and up at cold space at an elevation angle of about 22. The mirror can also be tilted to look at a black body calibration target. Reflection from the mirror is directed into a radiometer whose head functions as a diplexer to combine the input radiation and a local ocillator (klystron) beam. The radiometer head is comprised of a Fabry-Perot resonator consisting of two Fabry-Perot cavities spaced a number of half wavelengths apart. Incoming radiation received on one side is reflected and rotated 90 deg in polarization by the resonator so that it will be reflected by an input grid into a mixer, while the klystron beam received on the other side is also reflected and rotated 90 deg, but not without passing some energy to be reflected by the input grid into the mixer.

Gustincic, J. J.↗

X-wing noise data acquisition program

The X-wing circulation controlled rotor system model was tested for hover performance. During these performance tests, noise data from 12 microphones was recorded on magnetic tape for subsequent data reduction. The rotor system was operated at 4 tip speeds ranging from 529 to 650 ft./sec. (404 to 497 rpm), collective angles of attack fro 0 deg to 8.5 deg (maximum), and blade pressure ratios from 1.0 (no blowing) to a maximum of 2.1. The 12 microphones included 11 in the far field, and one in the transmission area. Following completion of the rotor and subsystem noise measurements, sound field calibration measurements were made of both the rotor 'bowl' and the loudspeaker system used in the 'bowl' calibration measurements. The location of 10 far field microphones was measured by a surveyor. Additionally, detailed tape logs were prepared for the six reels of tape used for the program.

Healy, G. J.↗

Interstellar carbon monoxide toward zeta Ophiuchi

Interstellar CO A-X bands in the spectrum of zeta Oph were recorded at high Sound-to-Noise (S/N) with grating G160M of the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. Isotopic fractionation of CO is severe: CO-12/CO-13 = 167, C(16)O/C(18)O approximately equal to 1550 and C(16)O/C(17)O is greater than 5900 are found where C-12/C-13 = 70, O-16/O-18 = 500, and O-16.O-17 = 2600 are observed or expected. Standard models of the zeta Oph cloud predict CO-12/CO-13 is less than or approximately 70. The higher observed ratio suggests that photodissociation of CO, not the isotopic charge exchange reaction ((13)C(+) + CO reversible reaction (12)C(+) + (13)(CO), is the dominant influence on the CO-12/CO-13 ratio.

Lambert, David L.↗

An Analysis of Gravity-Field Estimation Based on Intersatellite Dual-1-Way Biased Ranging

The GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) mission is designed to make global, highly accurate measurements of the Earth's gravity field with high spatial resolution. Ancillary GPS occultation measurements are also to be carried out for atmospheric monitoring. In the dual-1-way biased ranging of this mission, the range between two satellites separated by 100 to 200 km in nearly polar, coplanar, circular orbits, is measured to very high precision, to within an additive constant, through the exchange of K- and Ka-band sinusoidal signals. Such biased ranging data, along with GPS L-band range and phase data, can be processed and fit over successive multiday intervals to obtain accurate estimates of the Earth's gravity field. This report approximately models and analyzes this process, from the generation of the RF signals at the two satellites through the extraction of the geopotential. The steps include generation of the transmitted signals, processing the received signals to extract high-rate baseband phase, carrying out a dual-1-way combination of baseband phase to extract high-rate biased range for each band, combining K- and Ka-band ranges to correct for the ionosphere effect, and processing the resulting high-rate biased range values to extract three types of reduced-rate observables: biased range, range rate and range acceleration. The version of dual-1-way biased ranging developed by this report improves upon previous versions in a number of ways: highly accurate satellite-timetag corrections derived from concurrent GPS data, better baseband phase extraction using highly digital processing, highly accurate USO-rate calibration derived from concurrent GPS data, an improved method for extracting high-rate biased range from baseband phase, improved filtering for extracting reduced- rate observables from high-rate biased range, and parallel extraction of three observable types.

SINUSOIDAL SIGNALS↗