Experimental investigation of NACA-0012 airfoil instability noise with sawtooth trailing edges

Abstract

This study presents an experimental study of the effect of sawtooth trailing-edge serrations on airfoil instability noise. The far-field noise measurements are obtained to investigate the noise radiation characteristics of a NACA-0012 airfoil operated at various angles of attack: 0°, 5°, and 10°, and covered Reynolds numbers of 2.87 × 105, 3.71 × 105, and 5 × 105. It is found that as the Reynolds number increases, the instability noise shifts from tonal to broadband, whereas as the angle of attack increases, it shifts from broadband to tonal. Furthermore, sawtooth trailing-edges are used to minimize instability tonal noise, leading to considerable self-noise reduction. Parametric studies of the serration amplitude 2 h and streamwise wavelength λ are performed to understand the effect of sawtooth trailing-edges on noise reduction. It is observed that the sound pressure reduction level is sensitive to both the amplitude and streamwise wavelength. Overall, the sawtooth trailing-edge with larger amplitude and smaller wavelength produce the greatest amount of noise reduction.