Concave serrations on broadband trailing edge noise reduction

The far-field noise and flow field of a novel curved trailing-edge serration (i.e. iron-shaped) are investigated. Spectra of the far-field broadband noise, directivity plots and the flow-field over the iron-shaped serration are obtained from numerical computations performed using a compressible Lattice-Boltzmann solver. The new design is compared to a conventional trailing-edge serration with a triangular geometry retrofitted to a NACA 0018 airfoil at zero degree angle of attack. The iron-shaped geometry is found to reduce far-field broadband noise of approximately 2 dB more than the conventional sawtooth serration for chord-based Strouhal numbers Stc < 15. It is found that the larger noise reduction achieved by the iron-shaped trailing-edge serration is due to the mitigation of the scattered noise at the root, effect obtained by mitigating the interaction between the two sides of the serration, by delaying toward the tip both the outward and the downward flow motions present at the root