High-Fidelity Propeller Broadband Noise Prediction using SU2

A comprehensive numerical study is conducted to assess aerodynamic loads and far-field noise radiation of a 9x9 propeller under two distinct flow conditions: hover and forward flight. The simulations are performed on the UK National High Performance Computing cluster ARCHER2 using the open-source solver SU2. Two mesh configurations are employed: a coarsemesh (G1) consisting of 127 million elements and a finer mesh (G2) consisting of 251 million elements. The study commences with a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulation to achieve a steady state, which is then used to initiate an Implicit Large Eddy Simulation(ILES) simulation with a dual time-stepping scheme. Far-field noise is predicted using the solid-surface Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings acoustic analogy at 21 observer locations, corresponding to the microphone positions from an experimental study conducted at the University of Bristol aero acoustic facilities. The numerical results display good agreement with experimental data for torque and thrust predictions at both G1 and G2 meshes. Although the numerical noise prediction method does not consider quadrupole noise, it shows satisfactory agreement with experimental data for broadband noise between 1 kHz and 10 kHz and good agreement with experimental overall sound pressure level, especially in the forward flight case. The results validate the SU2 solver’s ability to perform high-fidelity noise predictions for rotating propellers.