Wook Rhee

Development of a Helicopter Rotor Test Rig and Measurement of Aeroacoustic Characteristics

In this paper the aeroacoustic characteristics of a helicopter main rotor system is measured by using a pair of scaled rotor blades. A low noise rotor test jig is developed for noise measurement and the rotational speed, thrust and torque are measured simultaneously in order to match the aerodynamic conditions with the full scale rotor. The accuracy of the force measurement device was checked through a calibration procedure. The measured thurst and torque with a 1.2m rotor are compared to the results of analytical prediction and showed that the thrust data at various rotational speed followed the prediction relatively well, but the torque data considered less accurate. It is also found that the background noise level of the test rig is sufficiently low, and the measured noise level from the rotor can be scaled with rotor tip speed. However, the Mach number dependancy and the directivity changes depend on the noise source characteristics.

Theoretical and Experimental Study on Airfoil Singing

Periodic vortex separations generate periodic vertical forces acting on a trailing edge of an airfoil. When a natural frequency of the trailing edge of the airfoil is close to a vortex shedding frequency, an amplitude of the edge oscillation becomes maximal; it makes intensive noise called singing. Motion of the trailing edge may also feedback to the vortex shedding so that self-sustained oscillation appears, and a resonant frequency is locked in some interval of the speed of the incident flow. In this study, a theoretical model is proposed and applied for modeling an airfoil singing. Results are compared with experimental measurements which are carried out in an anechoic wind tunnel.

A Trajectory Identification Technique for Two Rotating Sound Sources with Different Frequencies

The time difference of arrival(TDOA) algorithm is being used widely for identifying the location of a source emanating either electrical or acoustic signal. It`s application areas will not be limited to identifying the source at a fixed location, for example the origin of an earthquake, but will also include the trajectory monitoring for a moving source equipped with a GPS sensor. Most of the TDOA algorithm uses time correlation technique to find the time delay between received signals, and therefore difficult to be used for identifying the location of multiple sources. In this paper a TDOA algorithm based on cross-spectrum is developed to find the trajectory of two sound sources with different frequencies. Although its application is limited to for the sources on a disk plane, it can be applied for identifying the locations of more than two sources simultaneously.

Elimination of Self Noise & Doppler Effects from the Microphone Array Measurement

In the case of aeroacoustic test in windtunnel, measurement accuracy is reduced by not only Doppler effects but also by the microphone self noise due to airflow and high turbulence in the wall boundary layer. Microphone array measurements can be easily utilized for the solutions of these problems. In this paper, geometrical optics approach and diagonal term elimination of cross spectral matrix was introduced to the de-dopplerization and self noise reduction methods for the microphone array measurement. For the validation, beamforming tests for sinusoidal point source were performed in the closed type test section of windtunnel, and their performances of beam width and sidelobe rejection were significantly improved.

A Rotating Balance Design and Performance Estimation for a Rotor Test Jig

In this study a 3-component rotating balance, which is designed to measure the thrust (Fz) and two moment components (Mx, My) simultaneously for a rotor test jig, is designed and its performance is validated experimentally. The low voltage signal from the strain gages mounted on the balance is amplified with a rotating amplifier, which is then fed through a slip-ring unit into the data acquisition system. In order to validate the accuracy of the calibration matrix obtained from a static calibration test, an additional reaction type balance is used to measure the thrust from a model rotor simultaneously, and shows very good result. Finally, the expanded uncertainty value, which is obtained from ISO method is estimated to be , and the balance turns out to be reliable.

Study on Shear Layer Correction of Microphone Array Measurement in the Wind Tunnel Test

Microphone array beamforming method has been recognized as an important aeroacoustic research field and become a standard technique in localizing sound sources. This method also used in flight acoustic measurement, and especially, it is very useful when measure sounds inside the wind tunnel. In measuring sound which is inside the wind tunnel by traditional beamforming method, there are some errors caused by airstream. The speed and the propagation path of the sound changes as it travel through the airstream. This makes the error which the position of sound is changed a little bit to the down stream direction. In this paper, validation test has made about the correction equation for this wind effects of previous researches. And beamforming including shear layer correction was performed about a sound source in the anechoic open-jet wind tunnel.

Study for Visualization of Rotating Sound Source Using Microphone Array

Acoustic analysis of a moving sound source required that the measured sound signals be do-Dopplerized and restored as of the original emission signals. The purpose of this research is development of beamforming technique can be applied to the rotor noise source identification. For the do-Dopplerization and reconstruction of emitted sound wave, Forward Propagation Method is applied to the time domain beamforming technique. And validation test were performed using rotating sound source constructed by bended pipe and horn driver. In the validation test using sinusoidal sound wave, sufficient performance of signal processing can be seen, and the effect of measuring duration for accuracy was compared. In the prop-rotor measurements, the acoustic source locations were successfully verified in varying positions for different frequencies and collective pitch angle, in hover condition.

An Experimental Study on Flapping Motion of Forward Flight Condition used to Articulated Hub Rotor

In this paper, wind tunnel test and analytical prediction are compared for result of flapping motion in helicopter forward flight condition. Tests were performed at low speed wind tunnel at Chungnam National University, test section of wind tunnel has 1.8 by 1.8 meter open-jet test section area. According to the results of measured data for aerodynamic performance of model rotor in forward flight. It has to observed the difference of analytical and measured results of power coefficient for fixed thrust coefficient. And calculated and measured data of helicopter rotor flapping angles in forward flight are compared for a model rotor in a wind tunnel. A test was conducted to verify the measured data of coning and lateral/longitudinal flapping angle with predicted values.

Validation of Noise Prediction Theory Using Scaled Rotor Experiment for Hovering Condition

In this paper, a series of experiment is performed for a scaled hovering rotor in a semi-anechoic chamber and the results are compared to the noise spectra predicted by using Lowsons loading noise equation and FW-H equation. It was founded that the sound directivity pattern for both experiments and predictions are similar in their trend. Meanwhile the FW-H equation showed better agreement with experiments in the near-field noise spectra, but at the far-field the Lowsons equation performed better. The discrete noise are known to be proportional to the loading on the blades, which can be controlled by collective pitch angle of the blades. It was founded that the predicted spectra with FW-H equation come close to the measured noise spectra in low collective pitch, but in high collective pitch angles the Lowsons equation be more reliable.

Experimental study of synthetic aperture microphone array on rotor blade noise.

Recent development of signal processing technologies has encouraged the aero‐acousticians to implement the state‐of‐the‐art sensors and data acquisition devices. They sometimes cost too much; however, especially for the academic arenas, the efforts of reducing the expense of integrating a system and increasing performance of phased array have initiated the idea of designing the synthetic aperture microphone array. The application of beamforming technique in localizing rotor blade noise and the use of synthetic aperture array in wind tunnel testing are presented. To apply the synthetic aperture beamforming on rotating objects, three steps should be considered. The first step is to restore the original acoustic waveform radiated from a rotating sound source. The second step is to synthesize independent array measurement data by correcting phase information of the received acoustic signals. Finally, the beamformer calculates the power on each point of grid in the space. The paper describes the details of dep...