As recently noted by Moreau [
4], Computational AeraAcoustics (CAA) is now entering a third golden age, in which the development of high-order Navier-Stokes solvers on hybrid unstructured grids [
51,
52,
53,
54] and the emergence of new methods, such as the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) on Cartesian octree-grids [
55,
56] in which solid bodies are immersed, have allowed to compute complex geometries such as turboengines in a much more efficient way. The latter method by its inherent low dissipation-low dispersion properties on regular Cartesian grids [
4,
57] and its computational efficiency (about an order of magnitude faster [
58,
59]) even allow directly computing the far-field noise at the microphone positions. Details on the numerical schemes and parameters (notably the boundary conditions) can be found in [
4] and the associated references, and the first applications to other ducted blade rows in turboengines, such as the low-pressure compressor CME2 and the high-pressure turbine MT1, can be found in [
2,
3]. Low speed cases, such as the NASA-ANCF stage or typical automotive fan systems and modules, can also be found in [
3,
58]. Only the fan-OGV configuration is considered here, as it represents the greatest numerical challenge by its size and flow parameters (tip Mach and Reynolds numbers).
4.2. Broadband noise
Thanks to the recent progress in CAA [
4], several turboengine fan/OGV configurations described in
Section 2 have now been simulated by high-fidelity methods, such as compressible Large Eddy Simulations (LES) that resolve a significant amount of the flow turbulent scales to yield broadband noise predictions. The latter are obtained either directly at the microphone positions, as shown with LBM by Casalino
et al. [
67], or using a hybrid methodology combining the near-field noise sources with an acoustic analogy. The latter can again be in free-field using the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings’ analogy (FWH) [
18], or in a infinite duct using Goldstein’s analogy in a cylindrical duct [
19] or its extension in an annular duct [
29,
68]. These analogies can be applied either on the blade surface (solid FWH or Goldstein) or on a de-localized control surface away from the blade (permeable FWH or Goldstein). Note that, if the surfaces enclose all aforementioned quadrupolar sources, the difference between these two formulations can be a more efficient way to estimate their strength than the implementation of the volume integral.
As already mentioned in [
2,
3], the most intensively simulated configuration so far has been the NASA SDT turbofan, in its versions with 22 rotor blades, and mostly the reference stator case (54 vanes) at approach condition. Both wall-modeled Navier-Stokes LES [
68] or hybrid LB-VLES [
67] have been achieved on this fan-OGV configuration. Yet, the former involves an OGV rescaling to have 55 vanes (
periodicity), whereas the latter considers the full annulus. Note also that similar tip resolution is found between the N-S LES performed with the unstructured LES code AVBP developed by Cerfacs [
69] and the finest LBM simulation with PowerFLOW developed by 3DS [
70]. Additional rotor-only configurations have now been simulated with quasi wall-resolved simulations (WR-LES) achieved by Kholodov & Moreau [
71] that can serve as a reference simulation. Comparisons with the previous wall-modelled LES [
72,
73] using two different numerical schemes (Lax-Wendroff and TTG4A) show little differences on the blade and in the wake: noticeably similar overall global performances within 1% of measurements and good comparison with the hot-wire mean and root-mean-square (rms) velocity components downstream of the rotor. Only the tip vortices are better resolved as shown in
Figure 3. In the mean flow (
Figure 3 right), the tip leakage vortex (TLV) is thinner because better resolved, and accompanied with two induced counter-rotating vortices (TCR). The instantaneous flow inspection (
Figure 3 right) still reveals a strong interaction between the radial leading-edge vortex (LEV) and the TLV, which breaks down in the blade passage. In both plots, the tip separation vortex (TS) presents multiple fingers similarly to what Koch
et al. observed on both tip flows of the single airfoil tested at ECL and the Virginia Tech cascade [
74,
75]. This better resolved vortical structure in turn yields sharper LEV trace at the suction-side leading edge over the entire blade span (
L), and lower wall-pressure fluctuations locally at the tip, as shown in the rms pressure contours on the rotor blade in
Figure 4. Furthermore, coherence of wall-pressure fluctuations between two probes at the blade leading edge on the suction side within the LEV (1 and 3) and two probes at the trailing edge (2 and 4) at two different blade height (
) exhibits a hump around 30 kHz, which suggests that the LEV contributes to the trailing-edge scattering in this frequency range. This is quite similar to what Shubham
et al. [
76] reported on the CD airfoil with increasing different Mach numbers, noticeably the increasing noise contribution of the LSB formed at the leading edge to airfoil self-noise. Actually, blade-to-blade dilatation fields above 75% span [
77] already show some significant acoustic radiation from the LEV, consistently with what Deuse & Sandberg [
78] found on the CD airfoil.
Figure 3.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): tip vortices visualized by the
Q-criterion; left: instantaneous field, right: mean field; TLV: Tip-Leakage Vortex, TS: Tip Separation vortex, TCR: Tip Counter-Rotating vortex.
Figure 3.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): tip vortices visualized by the
Q-criterion; left: instantaneous field, right: mean field; TLV: Tip-Leakage Vortex, TS: Tip Separation vortex, TCR: Tip Counter-Rotating vortex.
The lower wall-pressure fluctuations at the tip also trigger lower predicted far-field noise sound power levels (SWL) at low frequencies, much closer to the NASA experimental data both upstream and downstream (
Figure 6), as suspected in [
68]. To further identify the main noise sources and their localization, the rotor blade is divided into different areas, as shown by the red lines in
Figure 4. The 20% tip portion is first separated from the remaining 80% part (
Figure 4 right).
Figure 6 shows the corresponding sound power level contributions. The additional cross-correlation term (grey dashed line) stresses that these two areas are hardly correlated, which infers that both contributions should add up to yield the full blade SWL (red line). In the upstream direction (
Figure 6 left), the airfoil contribution (green dashed line) is the largest, except at low and high frequencies. Downstream (
Figure 6 right), the tip contribution is dominant, except at mid-frequencies where both contributions are similar. An additional split of the rotor blade leading edge as shown in
Figure 4 (left) emphasizes that the tip region where the LEV and TLV collide is the largest contributor over the whole frequency range [
77]. Further modal decomposition of the pressure fluctuations on the blade and in the tip gap at different frequencies have confirmed the importance of these additional noise sources, mainly at the blade tip, and the previous findings of Kholodov & Moreau in the corresponding wall-modelled LES [
79]. Further analysis of tip noise is also provided in
Section 5. Note that other simulations on this NASA/SDT configuration have involved chorochronic boundary conditions and mixed uRANS/detached-eddy simulations [
80,
81,
82,
83]. In [
83], Suzuki
et al. even suggested that there is a potential amplification mechanism of RSI noise via spiral-Poiseuille-flow instability.
Figure 4.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): rms wall-pressure; left: suction side, right: pressure side.
Figure 4.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): rms wall-pressure; left: suction side, right: pressure side.
Figure 5.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): wall-pressure coherence between leading-edge (1 and 3) and trailing-edge (2 and 4) probes at two spanwise locations
; ; left: suction side, right: pressure side.
Figure 5.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): wall-pressure coherence between leading-edge (1 and 3) and trailing-edge (2 and 4) probes at two spanwise locations
; ; left: suction side, right: pressure side.
Figure 6.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): Upstream (left) and downstream (right) sound power levels. "RO" stands for Rotor Only; "Airfoil" and "Tip" refers to the split of the full blade shown in
Figure 4.
Figure 6.
NASA-SDT (WR-LES [
71]): Upstream (left) and downstream (right) sound power levels. "RO" stands for Rotor Only; "Airfoil" and "Tip" refers to the split of the full blade shown in
Figure 4.
Similarly, within the European project TurboNoiseBB, several wall-modelled LES of the ACAT1 turbofan with the shortest fan-OGV gap have been achieved with the high-order unstructured LES code AVBP [
84,
85]. As for the SDT case, to reduce the computational time the OGV has been rescaled to yield a 1 rotor blade–2 stator vanes configuration (
periodicity), but the by-pass has been introduced for the first time and a grid sensitivity has also been achieved for the first time, at approach conditions. The two LES meet wall-modelled criteria [
86], but the finer one has more grid points in the streamwise and spanwise directions, yielding a twice as large grid (210 versus 95 million cells respectively). Both RANS simulations and LES predict overall performances (mass-flow rate and fan pressure ratio) accurately, within 1% of measurements. The LES and RANS flow topologies are quite similar on the rotor, while the LES show much more radial flow on the stator vanes (with even a flow separation in the coarser LES) [
85]. Yet, the rotor LEV is much bigger and more two-dimensional, similar to a laminar separation bubble (LSB), in the RANS case. The finer LES also provides profiles of rms velocity components in the wake much closer to the hot-wire measurements within the experimental uncertainty [
84]. In [
84,
85], two types of acoustic predictions have been performed, the above hybrid predictions by combining direct wall-pressure fields with free-field FWH and in-duct Goldstein analogies, and semi-analytical broadband noise predictions by combining the simulated excitations with the models described in
Section 3. Note that when the results of the predictions of the above analytical models are compared with both the RANS and the mean LES flow fields, the latter yields significantly closer results to the experiment (see Figure 27 and 28 in [
85] for Posson’s and Hanson’s models respectively), consistently with the wake velocity profiles. A 5–10 dB noise difference over the whole frequency range is also observed between the two analogies, similar to what was found in SDT [
68]. Again splitting the OGV into two parts, consisting of the first 40% of the vane maximum axial chord over the entire vane span, and the 60% left aft part, shows in both LES that the trailing-edge noise may exceed that of the RSI mechanism. A significant broadband noise contribution of the rotor sources is also highlighted, especially at medium and high frequencies, for which it compares with the stator contribution. Such a result is consistent with what Kholodov & Moreau [
71] and Koch [
77] found on the SDT reference case with both the wall-modelled and wall-resolved LES. This also confirms the above presumption of Guerin
et al. [
20]. On this fan-OGV configuration, rotor shielding has also been assessed with a frequency domain linearized Navier-Stokes solver (LNS) by Blàsquez & Corral [
87]. They estimate a decrease in the upstream emitted noise of about 2.5 dB at approach, which is consistent with measurements [
16] and previous estimates by Posson & Moreau [
88] and Envia on the NASA-SDT at similar flow regime. Another recent numerical investigation of the rotor blockage effect on an ideal NACA0012 cascade noise by Ying
et al. [
89] also yields about 3 dB reduction of the upstream SWL with a similar 3 dB increase of the downstream SWL. They also confirm Posson & Moreau’s result that the upstream SWL decrease is at low and mid-frequencies, whereas there is an increase at high frequencies, which can be attributed to energy transfer between frequencies and modes (from counter-rotating to co-rotating modes). In [
87] (Figure 17), noise propagation is also found to be even more affected by the fan rotor blockage at high-rate operating conditions, such as cutback and sideline. Because of the presence of shocks and supersonic pockets in the fan flow-field, as found in another UHBR configuration [
64], the flat-plate models cannot reproduce the more exact LNS as closely in that cases. This study also shows that the by-pass inlet guide vane or engine section stator contributes slightly to the upstream noise at approach, but significantly at other operating conditions. Thus, this is an additional potential noise source to be considered besides RSI, especially for cutback and sideline conditions.
On the ECL5 turbofan case, Al Am and co-workers have considered three different configurations using the same high-order unstructured LES approach with AVBP [
90,
91]. They have first simulated a radial–slice sector centered around 80% of the actual blade span, as was done previously by de Laborderie
et al. on the CME2 compressor [
32,
92]; then they have computed a full–span sector as shown above on the other turbofans; and finally, they have achieved the first aero-acoustic prediction of a full–annulus turbofan. Note that Pérez Arroyo
et al [
93] had already achieved a full LES of the complete DGEN engine including the fan, but without considering noise. For the radial slice and the full–span sector, the OGV has again been rescaled to yield a 1 rotor blade–2 stator vanes configuration (
periodicity). The radial–slice sector has been simulated at four different mass flow rates corresponding to four fan blade angles-of-attack, to illustrate how the flow topology and noise generation evolve around the approach condition [
90]. Three competing noise mechanisms have been observed: a first one coming from the LSB also found near the rotor leading edge in this ECL5 configuration, a second one at the rotor trailing-edge and a final one on the stator leading-edge caused by the rotor wake interaction. The first rotor noise source gets more intense as the mass flow rate is decreased, as the LSB gets larger and more unsteady. It also appears as high-frequency tones, which have been related to the LSB unsteady coherent shedding by applying a dynamic mode tracking technique: this is actually very similar to the tonal noise generated by the large rollers created by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities of the LSB shear layer observed on the CD airfoil at 5 ° geometrical incidence [
94,
95]. An additional simulation without the stator row showed the two identical noise sources on the rotor, but reduced broadband levels only beyond 3-4 kHz, which suggests a dominant rotor noise source at low and mid-frequencies, and a RSI noise at higher frequencies. For the full–span sector, the mass-flow rate has been unfortunately increased to minimize the leading-edge separation, compared to the radial–slice sector and to previous approach simulations (SDT and ACAT1). Yet, a more limited LEV can still be observed in the top part of the blade starting at 60% span (Figure 6 in [
96]).
Another noticeable difference with the previous SDT and ACAT1 cases is the loading close to the tip induced by a very different transonic DCA-type airfoil with a strong aft camber at the blade tip, which triggers a strong aft loading. Consequently, several strong tip vortices are formed and they leave the tip gap after mid-chord, yielding a strong tip noise mostly at high frequencies caused by two noise mechanisms: the interaction of the tip leakage vortex with the next blade trailing edge (hump between 2 and 9 kHz) and the interaction of the tip separation and induced vortices with the same blade trailing edge (hump between 10 and 25 kHz). The interaction between the LEV and the tip vortices is also minimized. At midspan, as shown with the dilatation field in the blade row in
Figure 7, the dominant noise sources are the RSI and the blade and vane trailing-edge noise. Finally, Al Am also performed a full–annulus LES shown in
Figure 8. Similar mean flow as for the full–span sector case is found but smaller rms fluctuation fields and lower upstream and downstream SWL by a couple of dB, mostly caused by both lower grid resolution and larger artificial viscosity. Yet, no significant effect of the periodicity can be noticed on either the unsteady flow field and the radiated noise.
Figure 7.
ECL5 (sector WM-LES [
96]): Instantaneous dilatation field at 80% blade span.
Figure 7.
ECL5 (sector WM-LES [
96]): Instantaneous dilatation field at 80% blade span.
Figure 8.
ECL5 (full annulus WM-LES [
91]): Iso-surface of
Q-criterion colored by the vorticity magnitude; upstream view (left); downstream view (right). Courtesy of Al Am [
91].
Figure 8.
ECL5 (full annulus WM-LES [
91]): Iso-surface of
Q-criterion colored by the vorticity magnitude; upstream view (left); downstream view (right). Courtesy of Al Am [
91].
The interesting conclusions from these three independent studies on three different high by-pass ratio turbofans in approach conditins are the following. Firstly, all LES show some similar flow topology within the fan/OGV system. The classical rotor usually presents a strong LEV that spirals toward the blade tip and strongly interacts with the tip leakage vortices that possibly get totally dislocated. The LEV can be seen as the three-dimensional generalization of the LSB that was previously observed at similar loading on the isolated CD airfoil [
78,
97,
98,
99], and more recently on the small-span CD blade row, which corresponds to 80% blade span of the ECL5 configuration [
90]). The tip leakage vortices and the wakes then impinge on the stator vanes without immediate transition to turbulence at the vane leading edge. This is turn may trigger additional LSB on the stator vanes around mid-chord [
85]. All these vortical flow features are potential candidates for additional rotor and stator noise sources, as suggested by the recent analysis of Kholodov & Moreau [
79] and Lewis [
84], similarly to what was found on the CD airfoil at all simulated Mach numbers [
76,
78,
99] and on the small-span ECL5 CD blade row [
90]. For instance, all three cases showed some high-frequency contribution for the LSB or LEV with quasi-tones in the case of the radial–slice cascade caused by the highly coherent rollers formed in the small-span; this noise radiation is clearly seen in the dilatation field or in a modal analysis filtered at high frequencies. Note that Koch
et al. [
75] also reported a similar noise source in the LES of the Virginia Tech CD cascade (Figure 18), even though the more adapted loading of this configuration is quite different, yielding a LSB on the pressure side. Secondly, all hybrid noise predictions provide satisfactory comparisons with far-field noise measurements, with a clear improvement when using the more realistic in-duct annular acoustic analogy [
68,
85]. The comparison with the FWH free-field analogy also suggests that the latter overpredicts the levels at all frequencies, confirming some of the trends seen in the analytical models [
20]. Finally, another common conclusion from all these studies is that the rotor wake turbulence is quasi-isotropic upstream of the stator vanes over most of the vane span, which justifies the use of analytical isotropic turbulence spectra, such as von Kármán’s or Liepmann’s [
68]. Yet, as noted in [
20], the ACAT1 hot-wire measurements in the shortest interstage indicate that this assumption might be dubious near the casing wall because of the rotor tip vortex and the boundary layer in this region, and a different approach should be applied locally.