Four-jet impingement: Noise characteristics and simplified acoustic model

The noise generation mechanisms for four directly impinging supersonic jets are investigated employing implicit large eddy simulations with a higher-order weighted essentially non-oscillatory scheme. Although these types of impinging jet configurations have been used in many experiments, a detailed investigation of the noise generation mechanisms has not been conducted before. The flow field is highly complex and contains a wide range of temporal and spatial scales relevant for noise generation. Proper orthogonal decomposition is utilized to characterize the unsteady nature of the flow field involving unsteady shock oscillations, large coherent turbulent flow structures, and the sporadic appearance of vortical flow structures in the center of the four-jet impingement region. The causality method based on Lighthills acoustic analogy is applied to link fluctuations of flow quantities inside the source region to the acoustic pressure in the far field. It will be demonstrated that the entropy fluctuation term plays a vital role in the noise generation process. Consequently, the understanding of the noise generation mechanisms is employed to develop a simplified acoustic model of the four-jet impingement device by utilizing the equivalent source method. Finally, three linear acoustic four-jet impingement models of the four-jet impingement device are used as broadband noise sources inside an engine nacelle and the acoustic scattering results are validated against far-field acoustic experimental data.