Semi-Empirical Modeling and Prediction of Direct Combustor Noise

Due to turbofan design trends, advances in fan-noise-mitigation techniques, and expected aircraft configuration changes, the impact on overall airport community noise from certain aircraft-propulsion noise sources, such as fan and jet noise, will be reduced at all certification points in the future. The situation with regard to turbofan-core noise is less clear however. Combustor noise in particular—which presently is an important core-noise component, but not dominant from an overall noise perspective—could become more prominent in upcoming high-power-density core designs. Its detailed source structure in the combustor, including the indirect combustor-noise mechanism, and the effects of the propagation path through the engine and exhaust nozzle need to be better understood. This report reviews the current status of modeling and prediction of direct combustor noise. This work is carried out under the NASA Advanced Air Vehicles Program, Advanced Air Transport Technology Project, Aircraft Noise Reduction Subproject.