The effect of a cavity on airfoil tones

Abstract

The presence of a cavity in the pressure surface of an airfoil has been found via experiment to play a role in the production of airfoil tones, which was attributed to the presence of an acoustic feedback loop. The cavity length was sufficiently small that cavity oscillation modes did not occur for most of the investigated chord-based Reynolds number range of 70,000-320,000. The airfoil tonal noise frequencies varied as the position of the cavity was moved along a parallel section at the airfoil's maximum thickness: specifically, for a given velocity, the frequency spacing of the tones was inversely proportional to the geometric distance between the cavity and the trailing edge. The boundary layer instability waves considered responsible for the airfoil tones were only detected downstream of the cavity. This may be the first experimental verification of these aspects of the feedback loop model for airfoil tonal noise. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.