Blade-Vortex Interaction Noise

A unique and novel experimental approach has been developed to study the aerodynamics and acoustics of the helicopter Blade-Vortex Interaction in a controlled hover environment. This is achieved by having a non-lifting single-bladed rotor with a rigid hub interact with a carefully con-trolled gust disturbance that replicates the essential characteristics of the vortex velocity. This ex-perimental approach termed the Blade-Controlled Disturbance-Interaction or the BCDI, decouples the rotor parameters from the charactersitics of the incident disturbance velocity, thus providing an ideal setup for studying the blade’s aerodynamics and acoustic response in detail. Moreover, the angle of interaction between the disturbance field and the rotor blade can be controlled by orienting the gust, providing the ability to study both parallel and oblique interactions. The noise data was recorded at thirty different microphone locations. A series of experiments at various rotor tip Mach numbers and interaction angles, replicat-ing many of the conditions of helicopter BVI, were performed. The results show that the the directionality of the BVI noise is strongly determined by the interaction angle. A small change in interaction angle results in the radiation of noise over a larger azimuthal area compared to the parallel interaction. Moreover, as the interaction becomes more oblique, the peak noise elevatio