Tools for Simulating Atmospheric Turbulence Effects on Supersonic X-59 Acoustic Pressure Signatures

NASA has continued to develop its capabilities to simulate atmospheric turbulence effects on sonic boom propagation. New KZKFourier simulations have been conducted of nonlinear propagation through the atmospheric boundary layer under a variety of expected weather conditions. Updated input conditions, including source waveform, azimuth angle, and extended propagation distances have been investigated. Ensembles of FIR filters have been designed using these results to provide a more computationally efficient estimate of turbulence effects on ground waveforms. These filters have been implemented into PCBoom, a software package maintained by NASA and available to the general public upon request. These filters require only a small fraction of the KZKFourier run time and exhibit low errors when results are compared to the original KZKFourier simulations, using model-to-model verification test cases and calculation of human perception noise metrics. Challenges with applying the filters to new cases have been addressed by designing longer filters and adjusting processing methods to increase efficiency. The methods will be used to estimate noise metric variability due to atmospheric turbulence during the NASA Quesst mission community tests with the supersonic X-59 aircraft. This variability will be used to quantify uncertainty in noise exposure of survey respondents.