Applicability of Aeroacoustic Scaling Laws of Leading Edge Serrations for Rotating Applications

Abstract

The dominant aeroacoustic mechanisms of serrated leading edges, subjected to highly turbulent inflow conditions, can be compressed to spanwise decorrelation effects as well as effects of destructive interference. For single aerofoils, the resulting broadband noise reduction is known to follow spectral scaling laws. However, transferring serrated leading edges to rotating machinery, results in noise radiation patterns of significantly increased complexity, impeding to allocate the observed noise reduction to the underlying physical mechanisms. The current study aims at concatenating the scaling laws for stationary aerofoil and rotating-blade application and thus at providing valuable information on the aeroacoustic transferability of leading edge serrations. For the pursued approach, low-pressure axial fans are designed, obtaining identical serrated fan blade geometries than previously analyzed single aerofoils, hence allowing for direct comparison. Highly similar spectral noise reduction patterns are obtained for the broadband noise reduction of the serrated rotors, generally confirming the transferability and showing a scaling with the geometrical parameters of the serrations as well as the inflow conditions. Continuative analysis of the total noise reduction, however, constrains the applicability of the scaling laws to a specific operating range of the rotors and motivates for a devaluation of the scaling coefficients regarding additional rotor-specific effects.