Rotorcraft / eVTOL Aerodynamic and Aeroacoustic Prediction

Rotorcraft / eVTOL Aerodynamic and Aeroacoustic Prediction

Our research group has developed a prediction system to predict the aerodynamics and acoustics of rotorcraft and have applied the technology to eVTOL aircraft. We have an inhouse reduced order model aerodynamics code that runs in minutes relative to full-scale CFD. We combine these results with our inhouse acoustic solvers. We have developed two solvers to predict the radiated noise. The first is for the tones and these are predicted via solving numerically the Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy. The second approach solves for the broadband noise via examination of the turbulence that convects over the trailing edges of the blades. These two predictions are combined to predict the total noise. We show some of our flow-charts and basic predictions along with a visualization of the rotorcraft analysis below.