Noise reduction as affected by the extent and distribution of acoustic treatment in a turbofan engine inlet

An inlet noise suppressor for a TF-34 engine designed to have three acoustically treated rings was tested with several different ring arrangements. The configurations included: all three rings; two outer rings; single outer ring; single intermediate ring, and finally no rings. It was expected that as rings were removed, the acoustic performance would be degraded considerably. While a degradation occurred, it was not as large as predictions indicated. In fact, the prediction showed good agreement with the data only for the full-ring inlet configuration. The under-predictions which occurred with ring removal were believed a result of ignoring the presence of spinning modes which are known to damp more rapidly in cylindrical ducts than would be predicted by least attenuated mode or plane wave analysis.