NASA’s SR2 8-bladed propeller rotating at 6487rpm [1, 2, 3, 4] Advance Ratio of 3.06 and Mach Number of 0.6 is used to assess the aerodynamic and noise performance prediction capabilities of a standard commercial CFD code.

The main purpose of this study is to benchmark the performance prediction against experimental data for Power Coefficient and near-field noise measurements. Comparisons are made between single rotating and multiple rotating regions across a sliding mesh interface. We also focus on the effectiveness of capturing the downstream convection of tip vortex structures, in the wake of the propeller, modeled with all 8 blades, with a view towards using the approach to understand the interaction of these wake features with aerodynamic surfaces.

Noise predictions are performed using the standard FfowcsWilliams-Hawkings impermeable surface method for rotating dipoles. This is compared with near-field noise predictions using direct noise simulation from the unsteady compressible CFD code and experimental data, in terms of the measured dB intensity at the blade passing frequency and harmonics.

Additional unsteady CFD simulation was conducted for a separate SR2 propeller with a calibrated blade angle. The preliminary results of the direct near-field noise computation of dB intensity at the blade passing frequency have shown improved agreement with wind tunnel data at aft angles to the propeller plane.

Practices are demonstrated which result in low dependency on the sliding mesh interface location. Tip vortex structures and downstream convection are well captured by judicious choice of mesh refinement in the wake of the propeller.

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