Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, (2022), 35(3): 214–233

Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics

& Beihang University
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
cja@buaa.edu.cn
www.sciencedirect.com

Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise

reduction based on the concept of sound field
cancellation
Runze XIA a, Yongjie SHI a,*, Teng LI b, Guohua XU a

a
National Key Laboratory of Rotorcraft Aeromechanics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
b
China Helicopter Research and Development Institute, Jingdezhen 333001, China

Received 11 November 2020; revised 20 December 2021; accepted 18 February 2021

Available online 20 October 2021

KEYWORDS Abstract Numerical studies were performed to investigate the mechanism and potential of several
Active rotor; active rotors for reducing low-frequency in-plane thickness noise generated by rotating blades. A
Helicopter; numerical method coupling the blade element theory, prescribed wake model and Fowcs
Noise reduction; Williams-Hawkings (FW-H) equation was established for rotor noise prediction. It is indicated that
Sound field cancellation; the excitation force on the blade tip can generate anti-noise that to partly cancel the in-plane thick-
Thickness noise ness noise with an appropriate actuation law. Results from the phase, frequency and amplitude
sweeps show that the excitation force direction and actuation law are the crucial factors affecting
the noise reduction, which determine the noise reduction area in the elevation and azimuth direc-
tions, respectively. The active trailing-flap rotor can generate the in-plane excitation force, but
because of large lift-drag ratio the anti-noise is mainly from the vertical lift, which is caused by flap
deflection similar to a variable camber airfoil. For the harmonic control rotor and active twist rotor,
the excitation force is also attributed to the vertical blade lift. The vertical force can reduce the noise
near the rotor plane, it will also cause the noise increase in most other areas. Finally, two new active
rotors were proposed to generate the in-plane chordwise and spanwise excitation force. With the
modified actuation law, the noise in most areas around the rotor was reduced, which improved
the acoustic characteristics of rotor significantly.
Ó 2021 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shiyongjie@nuaa.edu.cn (Y. SHI).
Peer review under responsibility of Editorial Committee of CJA.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
Noise is a very important issue for both civilian and military
helicopter. Rotor noise, which is the main source of noise pro-
duced by a helicopter, has many generation mechanisms. This
includes thickness noise, loading noise, Blade-Vortex Interac-
tion (BVI) noise, high speed impulsive noise and broadband
noise.1 The rotor thickness noise features low frequency (typi-

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2021.09.007
1000-9361 Ó 2021 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation 215

cally less than 200 Hz) and slow attenuation. It can propagate propagation characteristics generating from vertical and in-
large distance because the helicopter usually operates at low plane unsteady force, i.e. lift and drag, and their reduction
altitudes and the rotor has a slight downward tilt. It is the mechanism of thickness noise is investigated. Then, the feasi-
major composition of helicopter far-field noise and the princi- bility and potential of three representative active rotors are
pal subject of acoustic detection. Consequently, the reduction studied through a serial of simulations of frequency, phase
of in-plane rotor thickness noise is particularly important. and amplitude sweeps in different flight states. Finally, the
In past decades, a plenty of techniques including passive new active rotors configurations and modified actuation law
and active controls, have been used for rotor noise reduction. are proposed to improve the noise reduction in terms of the
Lowering the blade tip speed is of great benefit to noise,2 but it principle of sound field cancelation.
also has significantly adverse impact on vibration and safety.
So most of studies focus on noise reduction by altering the 2. Concept and methodology
blade shape (sweep, taper or thin airfoil on blade tip).3–8
One of the representatives is the Blue edge blade.9 However, 2.1. Noise reduction concept
the rotor blade design requirements for reducing noise are
not always consistent with performance, aerodynamic, and
The noise generated from rotating rotor blade is governed by
structural requirements, significant trade-offs are usually made
the FW-H equation. An integral form, formulation F1A,30 is
during the process of the rotor design. The active control is a
employed in present research for noise prediction. The acoustic
more attractive way to reduce rotor noise. It has been studied
pressure p0 in F1A formulation can be expressed as a summa-
for several years, and most studies were for BVI noise reduc-
tion of thickness noise p0T and loading noise p0L :
tion, for example, harmonic control,10–14 active flaps15–18 and
active twist.19–22 The experimental and numerical results p0 ðx; tÞ ¼ p0T ðx; tÞ þ p0L ðx; tÞ ð1Þ
demonstrate that the active controls are effective for BVI noise
where
and vibration reduction. Comparatively, the studies on thick- "  #
Z _r
ness noise reduction are limited. Gopalan and Schmitz23,24, q0 v_n q0 vn M q0 vn a0 Mr  M2 Þ
4pp0T ðx; tÞ ¼ þ þ dS
Sim25 separately proposed the novel control method for reduc- f¼0 rð1  Mr Þ 2
rð1  Mr Þ3 r2 ð1  Mr Þ3 ret
ing the in-plane rotor noise in the principle of sound field ð2Þ
cancelation. They compared the noise reduction of single
Z "  #
monopole and dipole sources, as well as multiple controllers. F_ _r
FM F  FM F Mr  M2
Sargent and Schmitz26 conducted theoretical and experimental 4pp0L ðx; tÞ ¼ 2
þ 3
þ 2
þ dS
f¼0 a0 rð1  Mr Þ a0 rð1  Mr Þ r2 ð1  Mr Þ r2 ð1  Mr Þ3 ret
investigations on noise reduction with a tip-blowing rotor. The ð3Þ
results showed that about the 2 dB reduction of thickness noise
was achieved for the observation locates near the rotor plane. where x is the observer coordinate; t is time; f = 0 represents
Yang et al.27 studied the relation between the loading solution blade surface; q0 and a0 are density and sound speed in undis-
and resulting noise and proposed two active devices for in- turbed air; vn is the local normal velocity of blade surface; r is
plane noise reduction. Sim et al.28 conducted the wind tunnel the length of radiation vector r; M is the sectional Mach num-
test of the full-scale active flap rotor, Boeing-SMART rotor. ber; the subscript ‘‘r” denotes radiation direction (e.g.,
The blade in test has high aspect ratio and low torsional rigid- Mr ¼ M  r , where M is the local Mach number); F is the force
ity. The test results illustrated that the noise energy in the first on the blade surface; FM = FiMi, the subscript ‘‘i” denotes the
six blade-passing harmonics was reduced by up to 6 dB at a direction of component; the superscript ‘‘” denotes the rate of
moderate level flight with advance ratio of 0.30. They reported variation with respect to source time; the subscript ‘‘ret” indi-
that the reduced noise was attributed to the in-plane compo- cates that the integrals are evaluated at the retarded time; S is
nent of unsteady lift caused by the aeroelastic deformation the integral surface.
of blade, and little contribution from the flap drag. It can be The terms with r2 are inversely proportional to the square
inferred that more noise reduction should be achieved for of distance, and can be neglected when the observers are far
the harmonic control rotors based on the torsion of whole away from rotor, then the Eqs. (2) and (3) can be rewritten as
blade, e.g., higher harmonic control rotor. Unfortunately, 2 Velocity term
3
Z
Velocity timederivative term
zfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}|fflfflfflfflfflfflffl{ zfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}|fflfflfflfflfflfflffl{
few relevant findings have been reported in previous studies. 6 q0 v_n q0 vn M _r 7
6 7
In 2018, Shi et al.29 carried out the test of a 2 m-dimater, 4pp0T ðx; tÞ ¼ 6 þ 7 dS
trailing-flap rotor in an anechoic chamber and the noise reduc- f¼0 4 rð1  Mr Þ2 rð1  Mr Þ3 5
tion of 2–3 dB is observed in some microphones. The low ret
aspect ratio blade is stiff in torsion and is hard to produce tor- ð4Þ
sional deformation under the external torque, and it is uncer-
2Force timederivative term 3
tain whether the exciting force to reduce noise is attributed to zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{
Force term
zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl}|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{
Z 6 7
the lift or drag of the blade. Therefore, the research effort is 6 F_ FM _r 7
still required to study the effects of active rotors on thickness 4pp0L ðx; tÞ ¼ 6 þ 7 dS
f¼0 4 a0 rð1  Mr Þ 5
2 3
a0 rð1  Mr Þ
noise reduction.
The purpose of this paper focuses on the application of con- ret

cept of acoustic field cancellation for rotor thickness noise ð5Þ

reduction. First of all, a numerical method coupling blade ele- The concept of sound field cancelation for thickness noise
ment theory, wake model and Fowcs Williams-Hawkings reduction is introduced briefly first. The rotor thickness noise
(FW-H) equation is established for active rotor blade loading is caused by the periodic displacement of air by rotating
and noise predictions. Based on this method, the acoustic
216
blades. The sound pressure comes from the contributions of
oscillation of airflow velocity and its time derivative. From
view of mathematics, Eqs. (4) and (5) has a consistent form.
For example, if we replace the product of density and normal
velocity in Eq. (4) with force, then we can obtain the loading
noise formulation, Eq. (5). As shown in Fig. 1, the unsteady
aerodynamic force is arranged at the outer portion of the
blade. A controllable sound wave (anti-noise) that is opposite
to the original noise (thickness noise) is generated through
adjusting the amplitude and direction of unsteady force. The
superposition of them could cancel the sound pressure in a cer-
tain area, thereby reducing noise.
2.2. Noise prediction method
The rotor noise is predicted with a hybrid method, that is, the
blade airload is calculated by rotor aerodynamic method and
then the noise is calculated by the integral FW-H equation.
Because the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method
has difficulty in simulating some active rotor configurations
and performing excessive simulations including phase, fre-
quency and amplitude sweeps, the rotor aerodynamic method
based on the blade element theory and the prescribed wake
model was developed for the blade airload calculation. The
methods above were integrated into the code of Rotor
AeroDynamics and Acoustics Solver (RADAS) in Nanjing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which has been
widely used for conventional rotor simulations.31 For the
active rotors work through blade overall or local deformations
to improve the rotor performance and reduce vibration, the
modeling of them can be treated by the way the same as con-
ventional rotor. To be specific, the aerodynamic characteristics
of airfoils at different blade segments are obtained, and then
the airload distribution of blade is calculated by rotor aerody-
namic method. The influence of active deformation on wake
geometry is not modeled in present analysis.
Fig. 1 Concept of sound field cancelation for thickness noise reduction.29
R. XIA et al.
In simulation, each blade is divided into 30 segments in
spanwise and one revolution is divided into 73 stations with
an interval of 5°. The blade airload can be considered as a
chordwise compact and spanwise non-compact source, and
the loading noise is simply obtained by integrating the noise
generated from each sectional segment. However, the thickness
noise is non-compact sound source in both directions, it is
required to segment the blade both spanwise and chordwise.
Each sectional segment was divided into two parts and the
quadratic distribution and linear distribution are used for the
leading edge and trailing edge part, respectively.
8
< kqtl ði1Þ2
qi ¼ ðN 2
le 1Þ
ð6Þ
:q ¼ k þ ð1k qtl ÞðjNte Þ
j qtl Nte
where qi and qj are the segment indexes of leading edge and
trailing edge; Nle and Nte is the number of chordwise segments;
kqtl is separation point, kqtl = 0.25c, c is chord length. The cal-
culation results (Fig. 2) showed that 15 chordwise segments are
adequate for thickness noise prediction, where N is chordwise
segment number.
2.3. Validation for noise prediction method
The noise prediction method is validated against the hover
cases of UH-1H rotor and forward flight cases of AH-1/
Operational Load Survey (OLS) rotor.
Firstly, the capability of prediction for conditions that
thickness noise dominates is validated by comparing with the
1/7 scale model of UH-1H hovering noise.32 The main param-
eters of full scale UH-1H rotor are listed in Table 1. Due to the
lack of experiment data of moderate tip speed hovering noise,
the present prediction method is validated by comparing with
Baeder’s simulation result.33 Baeder’s method was verified by
good agreement with various high tip Mach number experi-
ments,33 thus the simulation result of Baeder’s for moderate
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation 217

Fig. 2 Variation of predicted thickness noise with number of

chordwise segments.

Table 1 UH-1H rotor parameters.

Parameter Metric
Number of blades 2
Airfoil NACA0012
Rotor radius (m) 7.315
Blade chord (m) 0.533
Blade twist (°) 10.9

Fig. 3 Sound pressure history of in-plane observer at 3.09 rotor

tip speed can be a reliable reference. Fig. 3 shows the calcu- radii for 1/7 scaled UH-1H rotor.
lated sound pressure time history of the in-plane observer at
3.09 rotor radii for tip Mach number Mtip to be 0.6 and 0.7,
respectively. As is shown, the calculated data agrees well with Table 2 AH-1/OLS rotor parameters.
Baeder’s data.
Parameter Metric
The method is further verified by comparing with AH-1/
OLS forward flight experiment data34 for overall noise predic- Number of blades 2
tion. The AH-1/OLS is a 1/7 scale model of AH-1 rotor, and Airfoil BHT-540
the main parameters34 of AH-1/OLS rotor are listed in Table 2. Rotor radius (m) 0.958
Blade chord (m) 0.104
The calculated flight condition35 is the Run 10,014 case, with
Blade twist (°) 10
an advance ratio of 0.164, a tip-path plane of 1°, a hover tip
Mach number of 0.664 and a thrust coefficient of 0.0054.
Sound pressure time history for two microphones #3
(2.85 m, 0 m, 1.65 m) and #9 (2.47 m, 1.43 m,
1.65 m) are shown in Fig. 4, where T is period of rotor. There 3.1. Trailing-flap rotor
is a good correlation of sound pressure peaks shown by the
comparation between experiment data35 and the present calcu- As shown in Fig. 5(a), the blade of Active Trailing-Flap (ATF)
lation for both microphones. rotor has a high-frequency rotation flap on its trailing edge.
The aerodynamic force and moment of the blade segment
3. Noise reduction potentials of active control rotors can be modified to achieve the required control target by
designed flap actuation schedule. As stated in Section 1, the
There are several ways to generate excitation force, but few can thickness noise reduction of ATF rotor has been demonstrated
be for rotor application. The potential of three representative in several experiments, but the source of force remains to be
active control rotors (Fig. 5), i.e., trailing-flap rotor, harmonic determined. Therefore, the noise reduction mechanism of
control rotor and active twist rotor, in reducing rotor thickness ATF rotor is analyzed by numerical method with a model
noise was analyzed first. These active rotors generate unsteady rotor in Ref. 29. The model rotor has two blades. The radius
excitation force via changing the overall or local deformation R is 1.0 m, the chord length c is 0.13 m, and the linear twist
of the blades. In Section 3.4, two configurations of active is 8°. The OA212 airfoil is used throughout the blade in
rotors are proposed to improve the noise reduction capability. the experiment, but the NACA0012 airfoil was used instead
218
Fig. 4 Sound pressure history of in-plane observer for AH-1/
OLS rotor.
in the numerical simulation for simplification. The trailing-
edge flap has a length of 0.118 m and the chord length is
0.02 m. The noise experiment was carried out in a rotor ane-
choic chamber in China Helicopter Research and Develop-
ment Institute (Fig. 6). Only a few test results are presented,
more details are found in Ref.29
Fig. 7 shows the variation of the Sound Pressure Level
(SPL) with the initial phase and actuation frequency of flap.
The microphone locates at 180° azimuth and 4R from hub cen-
ter. As Fig. 7 shown, the optimal initial phase with which the
maximum noise reduction is achieved varies with the actuation
frequency of flap. Because the step of phase sweep in the test is
large (about 30°), the optimal initial phase under the first and
second order actuation is around 270° and 180° respectively. In
the first order actuation, the maximum SPL is reduced by
2.5 dB. The time histories of sound pressure with and without
control at three observation positions are compared in Fig. 8.
Firstly, the noise characteristics of blade lift and drag are
analyzed. If only sectional segment at 0.8R of blade is consid-
ered, the blade is then simplified as an airfoil rotating around
the hub center. In this way, the noise generated by unsteady lift
and drag, and the effect on thickness noise reduction can be
well compared. In the control state, the blade pitch angle h
consists of control input, (i.e., collective pitch h0, cyclic pitch
h1c, h1s), and actuation input he, as
h ¼ h0 þ h1c cosðXtÞ þ h1s sinðXtÞ þ he cosðnXt þ w0 Þ ð7Þ
R. XIA et al.
Fig. 5 Three active control rotors.
Fig. 6 Rotor noise test in anechoic chamber.
where X is the rotating speed of rotor; n is the harmonic order
number of the actuation input; w0 is the initial actuation phase.
w is the azimuth of the blade, w = Xt.
To eliminate the influence of rotor loading noise introduced
by the azimuthal variation of blade loading caused by pitch,
the rotor control input is set to 0, and only the actuation input
is retained. In the first order actuation, the optimal initial
phase derived from theoretical analysis29 is 0°, hence the vari-
ation of pitch is h ¼ 1 cosðw þ 0 Þ with he = 1°. Fig. 9
shows the variation of sectional lift and drag of blade with azi-
muth, where L and D is the lift and drag. The lift is linearly
dependent on the Angle of Attack (AOA) and exhibits a vari-
ation in harmonic form. Although the drag also increases with
the angle of attack, it changes little in the range of small angles
of attack, which makes the time change rate of drag small,
thereby affecting the noise generation.
Fig. 10 shows the thickness noise, anti-noise and overall
noise at three observation positions in front of the rotor.
Fig. 10(a), (c), (e) and Fig. 10 (b), (d), (f) correspond to the ver-
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation
Fig. 7 Noise reduction varies with deflection frequency measured in experiment.
Fig. 8 Time history of sound pressure at three observations measured in experiment.
Fig. 9 Variation of sectional lift and drag at 0.8 rotor radius.
tical excitation force (lift) and the in-plane excitation force
(drag). In terms of the radiation directivity of various noises,
the thickness noise mainly propagates along the rotor plane
and decreases as the elevation angle increases; in contrary,
the noise generated by lift is the lowest near the rotor plane
and gradually increases with the elevation angle. As shown
in Fig. 10(a), (c), (e), the noise waveform generated by
unsteady lift is opposite to the thickness noise, and the total
noise is reduced in small elevation angles. However, as the con-
tinuous increase of anti-noise and decrease of thickness noise,
219
the anti-noise exceeds the thickness noise and increases the
total noise at large elevation angles, for example the observer
at 45° elevation. This is one of the main disadvantages of ver-
tical excitation force used for sound field cancellation, that is,
it reduces the noise near the rotor plane but also causes the
noise increase in most other areas. Anti-noise generated by
the in-plane drag propagates along the rotor plane that is sim-
ilar to thickness noise. But in this simulation case, the sectional
drag has little effect on thickness noise reduction because the
drag and its time-derivative are small.
The static airfoil aerodynamic data in C81 format is used in
the above calculation, then the CFD method is employed to
simulate the dynamic aerodynamic characteristics of the con-
ventional airfoil (NACA0012) and trailing-flap airfoil. As
shown in Fig. 11, the variation of AOA of the conventional
airfoil is a = 1°sin(xt), where x is oscillation frequency of air-
foil and trailing-flap; the variation of deflection angle of the
trailing-flap is b = 3°sin(xt), and the AOA of the main airfoil
is held constant a = 0°.
The oscillation frequency x of airfoil and trailing-flap,
equals to the rotor rotation speed X, thus the period exactly
corresponds to one revolution of rotor. Fig. 12 shows the vari-
ation of aerodynamic coefficients of two airfoils in one oscilla-
tion period. The lift and drag of the conventional airfoil
exhibit the approximate first order and second order harmonic
variations, respectively. The deflection of trailing-edge flap is
equivalent to changing the airfoil camber, and the lift and drag
220 R. XIA et al.

Fig. 10 Comparison of anti-noise generated by lift and drag.

of trailing-flap airfoil with 3° flap deflection are close to the

conventional airfoil. The instantaneous flow field and surface
pressure distribution in Fig. 13 clearly shows the influence of
flap deflection on airfoil aerodynamic characteristics, where x
is chordwise position. For a real rotor, there is a gap between
the flap and main airfoil. Previous studies36,37 have shown that
the disturbance of the trailing-edge flap can affect the main air-
foil in subsonic flow when the gap is small. Back to the rotor in
Ref.29, although the blade is rigid and not easy to produce elas-
tic torsion, the deflection of flap can cause the variation of
Fig. 11 Schematic of oscillating motion of airfoil. aerodynamic force by modifying the airfoil shape. Because of
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation
Fig. 12 Variation of aerodynamic force and moment during one
period.
the large lift-drag ratio of the airfoil, the lift is much greater
than the drag with the increase of flap deflection angle, so
the vertical lift is the excitation force generating the anti-noise.
3.2. Harmonic control rotor
The potential of harmonic control rotor for thickness noise
reduction is estimated. The distinct feature of this technology
is that the whole blade is actuated to experiences high-order
pitch when the harmonic control works. It includes high har-
monic control and individual blade control. Harmonic control
221
rotor was first used for rotor vibration reduction. Later, the
researchers11 found that it also has ability to reduce the BVI
noise by modifying the local induced velocity and the rotor
tip vortex. However, there is few reports on thickness noise
reduction by harmonic control rotor in previous studies.
3.2.1. Hover
First, the noise characteristics of hover condition is analyzed.
The control input is set to 0 to minimize the influence of rotor
loading noise introduced by the azimuthal variation of blade
loading caused by pitch. Because the noise generated by drag
is small, only the effect of unsteady lift on thickness noise is
discussed. Fig. 14(a) shows the variation of SPL with the initial
phase in the first order actuation (n = 1). It can be seen that
when the initial phase is in the third and fourth quadrants,
i.e. the azimuth is between (270°–360°–90°), the thickness noise
is reduced, with a maximum reduction of about 6 dB. From
theoretical analysis, the optimal initial phase is 0° for the
far-field observation position at the 180° azimuth in the rotor
plane. However, because the non-compact chordwise force is
used in simulation, the initial phase appears between 0° and
20°. The further phase sweep with interval of 2° gives that
the optimal initial phase is 11°. The time histories of thickness,
anti-noise and total noise are plotted in Fig. 14(b).
The contours of SPL in a hemispherical surface 100R from
the hub center is shown in Fig. 15. The distribution pattern of
thickness noise is axisymmetric in hover condition, but the
noise level in front and rear of the rotor changes significantly
when the blade actuation is applied. To compare directly the
noise level variation before and after control, the difference
contour is plotted in Fig. 15(c). The negative value indicates
noise reduction. Observed from Fig. 15(c), the noise is reduced
in the area near the rotor plane where the thickness noise is
dominant, and the maximum SPL is reduced up to 8 dB at
the positions with the elevation angle of 25°. But in the rear
of rotor, the noise is increased. The alternative reduction and
increase of the noise are caused by the harmonic form of actu-
ation. The excitation force is F = FAcos(w + 11°), where FA is
the amplitude of the excitation force, and its time derivative
FAsin(w + 11°) reaches the negative peak near the 90° azi-
muth, which can effectively reduce the thickness noise, mean-
while the derivative reaches the positive peak at the 270°
azimuth, which will generate the noise in phase with the thick-
ness noise, thereby increasing the noise.
It should be pointed out that the rotor collective pitch is
about 10° in real flight condition, and the blade loading noise
is higher than the anti noise generated by excitation force. In
addition, when the helicopter is in forward flight, the noise
level in the rear area is lower than that in the front area due
to the Doppler amplification effect. Both of them can alleviate
the adverse effect arising by the vertical excitation force to a
certain extent.
Then the effect of force amplitude on noise reduction is
studied. The optimal initial phase changes little with the force
amplitude when the actuation frequency is held constant,
hence the variation of the blade pitch is h = hecos(Xt
+ 11°), he = 1°, 2°, 3°. Fig. 16 compares sound pressure time
history and difference contour of SPL under different actua-
tion inputs. The excitation force and the generated anti-noise
are linearly proportional to the actuation input. With the
increase of the input, the anti-noise produced by the vertical
222
Fig. 13 Pressure contour and pressure coefficient.
excitation force increases, it will be higher than the thickness
noise, which results in the increase of total noise and reducing
the effective noise reduction area.
The actuation frequency is another important factor affect-
ing the anti-noise. The optimal initial phase changes with the
actuation frequency. Table 3 lists the optimal initial phases
at four actuation frequencies obtained from phase sweep. In
each case, the optimal phase lags behind the theoretical value
about 10°.
The noise is proportional to the load time-derivative, the
amplitudes of high-order actuation inputs are reduced in the
analysis to limit the excitation force not be excessive, as shown
in Table 3. The time histories of sound pressure at four actua-
tion frequencies are compared in Fig. 17. The thickness noise is
reduced in varying degrees at different frequencies, and the
reduction is 6.65, 10.89, 1.82, 3.40 dB respectively. It is inter-
esting to note that the noise waveform of low actuation fre-
R. XIA et al.
quency shows some differences with that of high actuation
frequency. In low-order actuation the sound pressure before
the positive peak increases slowly, while in high-order actua-
tion, a distinct negative peak exists in sound pressure. As the
actuation law is in terms of cosine function, the harmonic force
generates equal number of positive and negative peaks of force
time derivative in one rotor revolution. The noise waveforms
generated from positive and negative peaks are exactly oppo-
site. In the low order actuation, the phase shift between two
peaks is large, and there is little interaction between the posi-
tive and negative sound pressure. With the increase of actua-
tion frequency, the phase shift is reduced, so the
superposition of two distinct noise changes the noise
waveform.
Fig. 18 are the contour and difference contour of SPL at
four actuation frequencies. As expected, the pattern of alter-
nating increase and decrease of noise is shown in the contour.
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation 223

Fig. 14 Result of phase sweep with harmonic control in hover.

The frequency equals to the order of actuation. From the dif-

ference contour, the noise is reduced in the region near the
plane, while it is increased in most other regions.

3.2.2. Forward flight

Then, the effect of harmonic control rotor on noise reduction
in forward flight is investigated. The advance ratio is 0.2. To
minimize the effect of blade airload caused by pitch input,
the control input is set to 0, only the actuation input is kept. Fig. 15 Contours of SPL in a hemispherical surface with
Fig. 19(a) shows the variation of SPL with initial actuation harmonic control.
phase. The optimal initial phase is about 11°, and the maxi-
mum reduction is 4.2 dB. The optimal initial phase is the same
seen from Figs. 16 and 21, the influence of actuation input
as that in hover state. It means that the flight condition has lit-
on the noise reduction characteristics is general the same in
tle effect on the optimal initial phase. The time history of anti-
hover and forward flight.
noise generated by the excitation force is similar to that in
hover (Fig. 19(b)).
3.3. Active twist rotor
Fig. 20 compares the contours of SPL with or without con-
trol. In forward flight, the thickness noise level in the rear of
rotor is lower than that in the front due to Doppler amplifica- The Active Twist (ATW) rotor uses advanced deformable
tion effect. When the first order actuation is applied, the noise materials and micro-actuator mechanism to drive the blade
distribution is changed significantly. From the difference con- deforms in selective region, so as to achieve the required con-
tour, it is seen that only the noise in the range of small eleva- trol with minimum energy and negative impact cost. The noise
tion angles in front of rotor is reduced, which is caused by reduction potential of ATW rotors is estimated. For the con-
vertical excitation load in the form of harmonic. venience of modeling, the structure and geometric deformation
Fig. 21 gives the variations of sound pressure and SPL with of ATW are simplified, and assume that the blade segment of
actuation inputs. Although increasing the amount of actuation 0.8R–0.9R can twist freely.
input can lower the noise level in the narrow area near the In view of the similar results in hover and forward flight,
rotor, the noise reduction area will also decrease. As can be only analyzes the noise reduction in hover. For ATW rotor,
224 R. XIA et al.

Fig. 16 Variations of sound pressure and SPL with actuation inputs.

Table 3 Optimal initial phases at four frequencies. the deformation of active twist segment (i.e., 0.8R–0.9R) is the
hc (°) n Optimal initial phase (°) superposition of blade control input and local twist. Neglect-
ing the control input, the deformation law of twist segment
Phase sweep (°) Theoretical evaluation (°)
can be expressed as h = hecos(nXt + w0). Fig. 22 shows the
1.0 1 11 0 result of phase sweep under first order actuation. The optimal
0.7 2 280 270
initial phase is 12°, which is consistent with the harmonic con-
0.3 3 188 180
trol rotor.
0.3 4 98 90
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation
Fig. 17 Variation of sound pressure with force frequency.
Fig. 23 plots the variation of sound pressure and SPL with
the twist angle of deformation segment. When the twist angle
increases from 1° to 3°, the noise reduction increases from
1.4 dB to 5.0 dB. It is seen from the contours of SPL that
the noise distribution pattern around the rotor, the variation
of noise reduction with the twist angle are similar to the har-
monic control. Therefore, the detailed analysis and discussion
are not presented here.
3.4. Improvements of noise reduction
Although the three control rotors investigated in Sections 3.1–
3.3 can reduce the in-plane thickness noise in varying degrees,
it will increase the noise in a large area below the rotor plane
because of the vertical excitation force. In addition, the har-
monic excitation force will cause the noise around the rotor
to increase and decrease alternately. In conclusion, the three
control strategies for the cancellation of thickness noise stud-
ied in Sections 3.1 to 3.3 are not really practical in considera-
tion of the overall noise variation. In order to improve the
thickness noise reduction capability, and to minimize the area
in which noise may increase, it is necessary to design new con-
trol devices on the blade to generate in-plane excitation force.
Fig. 24 shows two hypothetical active rotors proposed. The
first one is to deploy a movable flat on the blade tip, which
can generate unsteady chordwise in-plane force by changing
225
the windward area of the flat. The second one is to deploy a
winglet on the blade tip to generate a spanwise in-plane excita-
tion force by changing the AOA of the winglet. Although these
configurations may be difficult to achieve in practice, our pur-
pose is to investigate the influence of in-plane excitation force
on thickness noise reduction by means of these control devices.
We first analyze the active flat configuration. Let the length
of flat is 0.1R, located at 0.8R–0.9R of blade, and the drag
(chordwise force) of flat can be expressed as
1
Fc ¼ Dw ¼ qv2in Cd s ð8Þ
2
where Dw is the drag of winglet; q is air density; vin is inflow
velcoity at the flat; Cd is drag coefficient; s is the area of flat.
The drag coefficient Cd is taken from the empirical drag
coefficient of the plate, and the resultant drag of flat varies
with its area. Given the rotor operation condition and the
motion law of flat, the chordwise excitation force of flat can
be obtained from Eq. (8). From the result of phase sweep
under first order actuation, the optimal initial phase is 6°.
Fig. 25 shows the contour and difference contour of SPL
around the rotor after applying the active flat. The noise distri-
bution is quite different from that in the case of the vertical
force, e.g. Fig. 15. Two distinct features are observed from
the difference contour, one is that the noise is effectively
reduced in a wide range of elevation angles in front of the
rotor, not only in the narrow area near rotor plane; the other
226 R. XIA et al.

Fig. 18 Contours of SPL at different actuation frequencies.

Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation 227

Fig. 19 Variation of noise reduction with initial phase in forward flight.

Fig. 20 Contours of SPL with harmonic control in forward flight.

is that even in the area behind the rotor, the increase of sound
pressure level is not significant, about 2 dB.
Then the active winglet configuration is analyzed. As shown
in Fig. 24(b), the chordwise and spanwise components of aero-
dynamic force of winglet can be expressed as
Fc ¼ Dw coshin þ Lw sinhin ð9Þ
Fs ¼ Dw sinhin  Lw coshin ð10Þ
where hin is the angle between the inflow and blade chord, it is
positive when the component of inflow points to the hub cen-
ter; Lw is the lift of winglet, and the lift toward hub center is
positive. The AOA of winglet is
a ¼ b0  hin ð11Þ
0
where b is the angle between the blade chord and winglet
chord. It is positive when the winglet rotates clockwise on
top view. In hover state, hin = 0 and a = b0 . Then, the span-
wise force of winglet is simplified as
Fs ¼ Lw ð12Þ
The loading noise generated by the spanwise propagates
along the spanwise of blade, thus the corresponding optimal
initial phase is different from the other force types. In order
to reduce the thickness noise in front of the rotor (e.g., 180°
azimuth), the anti-noise needs to propagate along the axis of
0°–180°, that is, the peak of the spanwise force should be
achieved at the 90° azimuth. The theoretical analysis and phase
sweep give the optimal initial phase are 90° and 98°, respec-
tively. Fig. 26 shows the contour and difference contour of
SPL around the rotor after applying the active winglet. Similar
to the case of chordwise force, the noise is reduced in most
areas in front of the rotor, and only increased in the rear of
the rotor.
The in-plane excitation force effectively expands the noise
reduction area in elevation direction around the rotor, but
the noise on the side and rear of the rotor is still increased,
which is caused by the harmonic excitation force. To improve
the acoustic characteristics of the rotor in the azimuth direc-
tion, the actuation law of the excitation force should be mod-
ified. For the observation position in front of the rotor, the
design principle of the actuation law is to make the force time
derivative reach the maximum only in the optimal initial phase
and approach 0 in other azimuth angles, in addition, the
amplitude of the force itself should be as small as possible.
Our research does not carry out the in-depth design of actua-
tion law, the two control laws given below are just simple mod-
ifications of the original harmonic law. As shown in Fig. 27, in
228 R. XIA et al.

Fig. 21 Variations of sound pressure and SPL with actuation inputs in forward flight.

Actuation law 1 the force reaches the maximum around the 90°
azimuth, and set to 0 on the retreating side. In Actuation law 2
the deflection of winglet between 172° and 352° azimuth is
reversed, so that the time derivative of force is positive on
the retreating side.
Fig. 28 shows the difference contours of SPL on the hemi-
spherical surface under two modified actuation laws. The
Actuation law 1 reduces the excitation force on the retreating
side, which significantly expands the noise reduction area
around the rotor, and more reduction is achieved in the thick-
ness noise dominant area compared with the baseline condi-
tion. The Actuation law 2 further introduces appropriate

Fig. 22 Result of phase sweep with active twist rotor.

Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation 229

Fig. 23 Variation of sound pressure and SPL with actuation input.

anti-noise in the rear of the rotor, which effectively reduce the
noise in most areas around the rotor. The noise still increases
in the region with an elevation angle greater than 60°, but it
has little influence on the far-field propagation. Although the
above two laws are only simple modification of the original
one, the noise reduction ability is significantly improved. It
indicates that the concept of sound field cancellation can be
effectively employed to the reduce rotor noise by selecting
appropriate excitation force (in-plane force) and well-
designed actuation law.
230
Fig. 24 Two hypothetical active control rotors.
Fig. 25 Contours of SPL with active flat.
4. Conclusions
(1) The excitation force on the blade tip can generate anti-
noise that to partly cancel the in-plane thickness noise
with an appropriate actuation law. The force direction
determines the radiation directionality of the anti-noise
R. XIA et al.
Fig. 26 Contours of SPL with active winglet.
and affects the noise reduction range in elevation. The
vertical force, e.g. lift, can reduce the noise of the obser-
vers near the rotor plane, but it will increase the noise in
a wide range of elevation angles. In comparison, the
radiation directionality of anti-noise generated by in-
plane force is consistent with thickness noise, it is an
ideal excitation force.
(2) The other factor that affects the features of anti-noise is
the actuation law of excitation force, which determines
the noise reduction range in azimuth direction around
the rotor. Because of the periodicity of the excitation
force in harmonic form, it causes the noise around the
rotor to increase and decrease alternately. The adverse
effect of the harmonic force on some azimuth angles
can be eliminated by designing the actuation law. It is
also found that the optimal actuation law of excitation
force changes little with flight conditions.
(3) From the results of phase, amplitude and frequency
sweeps, it can be seen that the harmonic control rotor
and active twist rotor can generate the anti-noise to
reduce the thickness noise through the overall or local
blade deformation, but the excitation force generating
anti-noise only comes from the vertical lift due to the
large lift-drag ration of airfoil. Therefore, these two
active control rotors can not be effectively employed
for thickness noise reduction.
Numerical study of the rotor thickness noise reduction based on the concept of sound field cancellation
Fig. 27 Modified actuation law for noise reduction at 0.8 rotor
radius.
(4) From the simulation result of dynamic aerodynamic
characteristics of trailing-flap airfoil, the flap deflection
is equivalent to the change of airfoil camber which will
lead to the change of aerodynamic force of main airfoil
even if there is no aeroelastic coupling between flap and
231
Fig. 28 Difference contours of SPL with modified actuation
laws.
main. For the active trailing-flap rotor, both blade lift
and in-plane drag caused by flap deflection can generate
the anti-noise, but the drag is relatively small because of
large lift-drag ratio of airfoil.
(5) In the end of the research, two active configurations are
proposed to generate the in-plane chordwise and span-
wise excitation force, and the actuation law of excitation
forces is re-designed in terms of the generation mecha-
nism of anti-noise. The numerical results show that com-
pared with aforementioned active rotors, both
chordwise and spanwise forces can significantly expand
the noise reduction area in the elevation direction. In
addition, the modified actuation law further increases
the noise reduction area in the azimuth direction and
greatly improves the acoustic characteristics around
the rotor.
The feasibility and potential of the concept of sound field
cancellation for rotor thickness noise reduction are demon-
strated through the numerical study of a variety of active con-
trol rotors. The focus of the future research is to explore the
practical devices or measures that can generate in-plane excita-
tion force, to design the optimal actuation law of excitation
232
force and to evaluate the net benefit by conducting CFD
analysis.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 11972190) and the Aeronautical
Science Foundation of China (No. 20185752).
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