On the noise reduction of a porous trailing edge applied to an airfoil at lifting condition

Numerical simulations, using a lattice-Boltzmann technique, have been carried out to study the effect of aerodynamic loading and Reynolds number on the aeroacoustics of a porous trailing-edge insert. The airfoil is a National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 0018 with the last 20% of its chord being replaceable with porous insert based on a Ni-Cr-Al metal foam with a mean pore diameter of 0.8 mm. The porous insert is modeled as an equivalent fluid region governed by the Darcy's law. The angle-of-attack is set to 7.8°, and the freestream Reynolds numbers based on the airfoil chord are 2.7 × 10⁵ and 5.4 × 10⁵. The amount of noise reduction produced by the porous insert generally decreases as the angle-of-attack or Reynolds number is increased, although the far-field noise directivity remains similar to that of the solid insert case. Unlike for a solid insert, in which noise sources are concentrated at the trailing edge, those on the porous insert are distributed across the porous medium surface, and they promote phase interference effect that causes noise attenuation. This mechanism is realized by the pressure release process, which refers to the interaction between surface pressure fluctuations on both sides of the trailing edge through the porous medium. It is found that the pressure release process is strongly present at the last 25% of the porous insert extent, and thus the upstream segment plays a relatively limited role in noise attenuation. The porous insert also causes velocity deficit, enhanced Reynolds shear stress, and lower convection velocity in the turbulent boundary layer. Nevertheless, since only the flow field surrounding the porous insert is affected, the overall aerodynamic penalty is relatively minor. It has also been found that the effect of mean cross-flow inside the porous medium is almost negligible in the present investigation due to the small surface pressure difference between the two sides of the porous insert.