The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

Aero-Acoustic Modelling using Large Eddy Simulation

W Z Shen* and J N Srensen Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark *E-mail: shen@mek.dtu.dk
Abstract. The splitting technique for aero-acoustic computations is extended to simulate threedimensional flow and acoustic waves from airfoils. The aero-acoustic model is coupled to a sub-grid-scale turbulence model for Large-Eddy Simulations. In the first test case, the model is applied to compute laminar flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800, a Mach number of 0.2 and an angle of attack of 20o. The model is then applied to compute turbulent flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000, a Mach number of 0.2 and an angle of attack of 20o. The predicted noise spectrum is compared to experimental data.

1. Introduction Computational aero-acoustics (CAA) is now becoming a common tool for predicting noise generated from aerodynamic flows, such as helicopter and wind turbine flows. Since such flows are complex and turbulent, the generated noise is broadband. To predict the noise, a simple way is to employ semiempirical modelling in which noise formulae obtained from the Lighthill acoustic analogy [1] and scaled on a set of experimental data are used. Semi-empirical models [2-8] are easy to run on a personal computer and can be used to design low-noise blades. Since semi-empirical models are based on limited sets of experimental data, many fundamental questions may arise, such as the applicability of the model and the accuracy of the experimental data. In order to resolve the problem, one possibility is to solve the 3D compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations using Large Eddy Simulations (LES). In the recent years, computer resources have been improved significantly and this now becomes possible. In this context, the splitting technique developed by Shen and Srensen [9] will be used for computing the noise from turbulent flows. In the first step, the flow solution is obtained by solving the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations together with a suitable sub-grid-scale model. In our simulations, the mixed model developed by Ta Phuoc [10] is used. The mixed model exploits the advantages of the vorticity turbulence model and the small scale turbulence model and it has been shown that it is superior to usual SGS models. After the flow stabilizes, the perturbed compressible equations are solved. Since the flow and the acoustic equations are solved separately in two steps, they can be discretized on two different meshes with two different time-steps. For this reason, the splitting technique is faster than the more conventional method of directly solving the compressible Euler/Navier-Stokes equations. The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, the numerical methods for both flow and acoustics are summarized. The numerical results of three dimensional flows past a NACA 0015 airfoil are presented and discussed in section 3.
c 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

2. Numerical method Since we consider noise generated from flows at low Mach numbers, it is advantageous to split the compressible solution into an incompressible part representing the flow and a perturbed compressible part representing the acoustics. In this section, the governing equations for both flow and acoustics are presented and their numerical discretization is shown. 2.1. Flow solver The governing equation for the flow is the three-dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. For Large Eddy Simulations, two spatial filters will be used. The first filter, identified by a bar ( ), is due to the finest mesh used in computations, whereas the second filter, denoted the test filter, is shown
~

with a tilde ( ) . The filtered incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in velocity-pressure variables are written:

U i U iU j 2U i ij 1 P + = + , t x j xi x j x 2 j
U i = 0. x i

(1) (2)

In the equations, the turbulent stresses from the filtering are expressed as

ij = U iU j U iU j = U iU j U iU j + U iU j + U iU j + U iU j

) (

(3)

where the fluctuations U i = U i U i . The turbulent stresses are modelled by an eddy viscosity based model:

ij = t

U i x j

where t is the eddy viscosity, k is the turbulent kinetic energy and ij is the Kronecker symbol. The eddy viscosity is determined by the mixed turbulent model developed by Ta Phuoc [10]

U j 2 k ij x i 3

(4)

t = C k (1 ) 2 (1+ )

(5)

where C is a model constant, is the curl of velocity (i.e. the vorticity), is the grid size and is a parameter taken a value in the range between 0 and 1. Assuming the similarity between two grid levels, the turbulent kinetic energy can be calculated by using the second filter:

k=

1 3 U j U j 2 j =1

~ 1 3 U j U j 2 j =1

(6)

where U j is the filtered velocity on the resolved velocity, U j , using the second filter, i.e. the double filtered velocity. The model Eq. (5) becomes the vorticity model in the case when = 1 :

t = C 2
and it becomes the Bardina model [11] in the case when = 0 : t = Ck 1 / 2 .

(7) (8)

From references [10] [12] it is found that the model gives the best results when the parameter = 0.5 :

t = C

1/ 2

k 1 / 4 3 / 2

(9)

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

where C = 0.02 . This model is used in our computations for turbulent flow. The filtered incompressible equations are solved by the EllipSys3D code, which is developed at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) [13] in co-operation with the Department of Wind Energy at Ris National Laboratory [14]. The EllipSys3D code is based on a multi block / cell-centered finite volume discretization of the steady / unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variables (pressure-velocity). The predictor-corrector method is used. In the predictor step, the momentum equations are discretized using a second-order backward differentiation scheme in time and second-order central differences in space, except for the convective terms that are discretized by the QUICK upwind scheme. In the corrector step, the improved Rhie-Chow interpolation developed by Shen et al. [15] and the modified SIMPLE-C scheme on collocated grids [16] are used in order to avoid numerical oscillations from pressure decoupling. The obtained pressure Poisson equation is solved by a five-level multi-grid technique. For more details about the numerical technique, the reader is referred to the references [13]-[16]. Since the EllipSys3D code is programmed using a multi-block topology, it can be parallelized relatively easy using Message Passing Interface (MPI). 2.2. Acoustic solver The three-dimensional acoustic / compressible perturbation equations for turbulent flows were developed by Shen and Srensen [9]. They consist of one density equation, three velocity fluctuation equations and one pressure equation:

* f i + = 0, t x i
f i * 2 * * * + f i U j + u j + 0U i u j + p + 3 k ij = x t x j j

(10)

* U i U j + t x x i j

(11)

p * * P = c2 , t t t

(12)

where (*) denotes acoustic variables, with auxiliary variables defined as f i = u i* + *U i . The speed of sound is calculated from the general expression for gases:

c2 =

(P + p * ) . 0+ *

(13)

The acoustic perturbation equations are discretized using the technique developed in [17]. It is solved with a predictor-corrector / finite volume method. In the predictor step, the momentum equations are discretized using a second-order Crank-Nicolson scheme in time and second-order central differences in space, except for the convective terms that are discretized by the QUICK upwind scheme. In the corrector step, the modified SIMPLE-C scheme on collocated grids together with the Rhie-Chow interpolation is used for acoustic equations. The obtained pressure correction equation is solved by the same multi-grid technique that has been used in the flow part. 2.3. Meshes As a test case, the flow past a NACA 00 15 airfoil is considered. Since two dimensional flows are unstable at high Reynolds numbers (bigger than about 500), it is necessary to consider threedimensionality. In order to reduce the computational cost, periodic conditions in the spanwise direction is employed. The computational domain used for the flow computations covers a cylindrical domain with a radius of about 40 airfoil chords and a length of 2 chords in the spanwise direction. For laminar flow computations at a Reynolds number of 800, a mesh consisting of 128 cells, stretched toward the wall in the radial direction, 192 cells in the tangential direction and 64 cells uniform distributed in the spanwise direction is used. The computations were performed on 6 processors. For turbulent flow computations at a Reynolds number of 100 000, a mesh consisting of
3

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

192 cells stretched toward the wall in the radial direction, 256 cells in the tangential direction and 64 cells uniform distributed in the spanwise direction is used. The turbulent flow computations were performed on 12 processors. The same numbers of mesh points are used for the acoustic computations. Since acoustic waves are generated from the airfoil and propagate outwards, it requires a relative finer mesh in the far field than that required for the incompressible mesh. On the other hand, it does not need so many points close to the wall because the acoustic source is contained in the incompressible solution. Thus, a modified mesh for acoustic computations is generated in a cylindrical domain with a radius of about 22 chords and a length of 2 chords in the spanwise direction. 3. Results and discussion In this section, three dimensional laminar and turbulent flows past a NACA 0015 airfoil at Reynolds numbers of 800 and 100 000, respectively, are performed. In order to reduce the computational time, the flow part of the code is first run. When the flow stabilizes at a dimensionless time of about 80 based on the free-stream and the airfoil chord, the acoustic part of the code is started to run together with the flow part. 3.1. Flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800 In order to check the performance of our three-dimensional code both for flow and acoustics, a laminar flow at a Reynolds number of 800, an angle of attack of 20 o and a Mach number of 0.2 with periodic boundary conditions in the spanwise direction, is considered.

Figure 1: Drag and lift coefficients (left) and frequency spectrum (right) of the lift coefficient for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800 and an angle of attack of 20o.

Drag and lift coefficients are shown in figure 1 (left). From the figure, it is seen that the drag coefficient is quasi-periodic with a mean value of about 0.37 and that the lift coefficient has more fluctuations with a mean value of about 0.64. The signal of lift coefficient is analysed by applying a Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). The frequency spectrum is shown in figure 1 (right). From the figure, it is seen that the dominant dimensionless frequency (Strouhal number) is 0.527 and a secondary low dimensionless frequency of 0.107 is observed. This low frequency indicates that a spanwise mode exists in the vortex shedding from the airfoil. The streamwise vorticity is plotted in figure 2. From the figure, it is seen that the flow is dominated by the Strouhal number and that the dominant mode in the spanwise direction is a mode 2 in the near field close to the airfoil and a mode 3 in the far field.

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

Figure 2: Iso-surface plot of the stream wise vorticity (-0.2 and 0.2) for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800 and an angle of attack of 20o.
P P

Figure 3: Normalized fluctuating pressure (left) and spectrum (right) of the signal at 270o for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800, a Mach number of 0.2, an angle of attack of 20o and a distance of 10 chords from the airfoil centre.
P P P P

Figure 3 (left) shows the normalized fluctuating pressure ( p p o ) p o at a distance of 10 airfoil chords from the airfoil centre and 90o and 270o about the flow direction. From the figure, it is seen that the signals are dominated by the Strouhal number like in the lift curve. By performing a FFT on the signal at 270o, the spectrum is obtained and plotted in figure 3 (right). The spectrum is rescaled for an airfoil with a chord of 10.16 cm in a flow with a free-stream velocity of 71.3 m/s while the Reynolds number and the angle of attack are not changed. From the figure, it is seen that there exists a tonal noise at a frequency of about 400 Hz and its harmonics. In figure 4 (left), iso-surface of fluctuating pressure is plotted. From the figure, it is seen that the acoustic waves propagate outwards from the airfoil and it is almost two-dimensional, not like the three-dimensional wake structure in figure 2. The acoustic directivity pattern for the airfoil flow is shown in figure 4. Apart from the vorticity waves in the airfoil wake, a dipole structure is clearly observed with an axis of about 12o to the flow direction.
P P P P P P P P

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

Figure 4: Iso-surface plot of fluctuating pressure (left) and directivity at a distance of 10 chords from the airfoil centre (right) for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 800, a Mach number of 0.2 and an angle of attack of 20o.

3.2. Flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000 Since LES for flow at a high Reynolds number is very expensive, a turbulent flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000, an angle of attack of 20 o and a Mach number of 0.2 with periodic boundary condition in the spanwise direction is computed instead.

Figure 5: Drag and lift coefficients (left) and frequency spectum of the lift coefficient (right) for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 00 and an angle of attack of 20o.

Drag and lift coefficients are shown in figure 5 (left). From the figure, it is seen that the drag coefficient has a small variation with a mean value of about 0.3 and the lift coefficient has more fluctuations with a mean value of about 0.65. The signal of lift coefficient is analysed by applying FFT. The frequency spectrum is shown in figure 5 (right). From the figure, it is seen that the dominant dimensionless frequency (Strouhal number) is 0.6. Comparisons of the obtained lift and drag coefficients to the data [18] are shown in figure 6. The data in [18] combines experimental and numerical data for flow past a NACA 0015 at Reynolds numbers of 70 000 and 160 000. From the figure, a good agreement about the drag coefficient is seen. The numerical lift coefficient is overpredicted comparing to the data [18]. The reason of such difference could be due that at low Reynolds number there are double stalls (two levels) in the airfoil lift characteristics. The streamwise vorticity is

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

plotted in figure 7. From the figure, it is seen that the flow is random and in the spanwise direction the dominant mode is a mode 15 close to the suction side of the airfoil surface, which becomes very complicated in the far field.

Figure 6: Comparison of lift and drag coefficients to the data from Sheldahl et al. [18].

Figure 7: Iso-surface plot of the stream wise vorticity (-0.2 and 0.2) for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000 and an angle of attack of 20o.
P P

Figure 8 (left) shows the normalized fluctuating pressure ( p p o ) p o at a distance of 12 airfoil chords from the airfoil centre and 0o, 90o and 270o about the flow direction. From the figure, it is seen that the signals are fluctuating randomly. By performing a FFT on the signal at 270o, the 1/3 octave spectrum is obtained and plotted in figure 8 (right). The spectrum is rescaled for an airfoil with a chord of 10.16 cm in a flow with a free-stream velocity of 71.3 m/s while the Reynolds number and the angle of attack are kept unchanged. Since it is difficult to find noise measurements at low Reynolds number, the experimental noise spectrum from Brook at al. [2] is used for qualitative comparisons. The experimental noise spectrum was obtained for flow past a NACA 0012 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 500 000 and an angle of attack of 15.6o at the observer of 90o and 15 chords away from the airfoil. From the figure, it is seen that the noise is broad band and the numerical spectrum has a similar level as the experimental counterpart. In the low frequency region (<300 Hz), the numerical noise level is about 5dB more than the experimental level whereas in the high frequency region (>3000 Hz), it is smaller than the experiment that may contain background noise. In figure 9, the acoustic
P P P P P P P P P P P P

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

directivity pattern for the turbulent flow is shown. From the figure, a nearly dipole structure is seen (the directivity may contain a quadrupole feature due to the turbulent stresses). In the airfoil wake, vorticity waves are seen.

Figure 8: Normalized fluctuating pressure (left) and spectrum (right) of the signal at 270o for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000, a Mach number of 0.2, an angle of attack of 20o and a distance of 12 chords from the airfoil centre.

Figure 9: Directivity pattern at a distance of 12 chords from the airfoil centre for flow past a NACA 0015 airfoil at a Reynolds number of 100 000, a Mach number of 0.2 and an angle of attack of 20o.

4. Conclusion The splitting technique that consists of an incompressible flow part and a fluctuating acoustic part is extended to simulate three-dimensional flows past an airfoil. The turbulent flow is simulated with a Sub-Grid-Scale model (the mixed model) for Large Eddy Simulations. Comparison of the numerical noise spectrum with experimental data shows general agreements. Since there are differences in airfoil shape, Reynolds number and free-stream turbulence level, some discrepancies in lift coefficient and noise level are also seen. The model will later be extended to study noise emission from wind turbines.

The Science of Making Torque from Wind Journal of Physics: Conference Series 75 (2007) 012085

IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1742-6596/75/1/012085

Acknowledgement This study was supported partly by the Research Programme for Renewable Energy, EFP-06 and partly by the Danish Scientific Research Council (STVF-04). The computer simulations were performed on a cluster of 210 personal computers, sponsored by the Danish Centre for Scientific Computing. References [1] Lighthill M J 1952 Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A 211 564. [2] Brook T F, Pope D S and Marcolini M A 1989 Airfoil self-noise and prediction NASA Reference Publication 1218, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA. [3] Lowson M V 1993 Assessment and prediction of wind turbine noise, 1. Basic aerodynamic and acoustic models. Flow Solutions Report 93/06, W/!3/00317/00/00. [4] Grosveld F W 1985 J. Propul. Power 1 292. [5] Viterna L A 1981 The NASA LeRC wind turbine sound prediction code, NASA CP-2185 410. [6] Fuglsand P and Madsen H A 1996, Implementation and verification of an aeroacoustic noise prediction model for wind turbines Ris-R-867 (EN), Ris National Laboratory, Denmark. [7] Wagner S Bareiss R and Guidati G 1996 Wind Turbine Noise EUR 16823 Springer. [8] Zhu W J, Heilskov N, Shen W Z and Srensen J N 2005 J. Sol. Energy Eng. 127 517. [9] Shen W Z and Srensen J N 2001 AIAA Journal 39 (6) 1057. [10] Ta Phuoc L 1994 Modles de sous maille appliqus aux coulements instationnaires dcolls Proceedings of a DRET Conference : Arodynamique Instationnare Turbulente-Aspects numriques et exprimentaux. Paris, France : DGA/DRET editors. [11] Bardina J, Ferziger J H and Reynolds W C 1980 Improved subgrid scale models for large eddy simulation AIAA paper 80-1357. [12] Sagaut P 2006 Large Eddy Simulation for incompressible flows, Third Edition, Springer. [13] Michelsen J A 1992 Basis3D - a Platform for Development of Multiblock PDE Solvers Technical Report, AFM 92-05, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark. [14] Srensen N N 1995 General Purpose Flow Solver Applied to Flow over Hills Ris-R-827-(EN), Ris National Laboratory, Roskilde, Denmark. [15] Shen W Z, Michelsen J A and Srensen J N 2001 AIAA Journal 39 (12) 2406. [16] Shen W Z, Michelsen J A, Srensen N N and Srensen J N 2003 Numerical Heat Transfer B 43 221. [17] Shen W Z, Michelsen J A and Srensen J N 2004 Journal of Computational Physics 196 348. [18] Sheldahl R E and Klimas P C 1981 Aerodynamic Characteristics of Seven Airfoil Sections Through 180 Degrees Angle of Attack for Use in Aerodynamic Analysis of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines SAND80-2114, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.