Towards Prediction and Control of Large Scale Turbulent Structure Supersonic Jet Noise

In this paper, we report on progress towards developing physics-based models of sound generation by large-scale turbulent structures in supersonic jet shear layers generally accepted to be the source of aft-angle noise. Aside from obtaining better engineering prediction schemes, the development and optimization of long term jet noise reduction strategies based on controlling instability wave generated large-scale turbulence structures in the shear layer can be more successful if based on predictive flow-noise models, rather than on build and test approaches alone. Such models, if successful, may also provide a path by which laboratory scale demonstrations can be more reliably translated to engine scale. Results show that the noise radiated by large-scale structures in turbulent jet shear layers may be modeled using a RANS based PSE method and projected to the far-field using a Kirchhoff surface approach. A key enabler in this procedure is the development of near-field microphone arrays capable of providing the pressure statistics needed to validate the instability wave models. Our framework provides, for the first time, a deterministic model that will allow understanding and predicting noise radiated by large-scale turbulence.