Aerodynamic noise reduction of a blunt flat plate by trailing-edge blowing

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of air blowing on the aerodynamic noise generated by a flat plate with a blunt trailing edge. The uniform blowing was applied through evenly spaced holes along the span at the base of the flat plate. Acoustic pressure measurements were conducted in an anechoic wind tunnel using a free-field microphone at Reynolds numbers ranging from 2.8×105 to 6.5×105. Particle image velocimetry measurements were performed to obtain time-resolved evolution and statistics of the flow velocity field, providing a detailed understanding of the noise reduction mechanisms. The results demonstrated that air blowing effectively reduces both the amplitude and bandwidth of tonal and broadband noise within a limited frequency range. This phenomenon was attributed to the stabilization of separated shear layers over a longer distance by air blowing and a decrease in turbulent kinetic energy in the near-wake region. It was shown that air blowing suppresses the tonal peak of vertical velocity fluctuations and narrows the wake width, which accounts for the increase of vortex shedding frequency and a potential drag reduction. Generally, the effects of air blowing on vortex shedding at the blunt trailing edge are analogous to those of a splitter plate. The unaffected convective velocity of the large-scale vortex structures and the enhanced spanwise coherence in the vortex formation region provide further evidence to this analogy.