Challenges and Opportunities for Noise Reduction Through Advanced Aircraft Propulsion Airframe Integration and Configurations

Aircraft noise has been a public concern since the beginning of commercial jet powered aviation. Historical progress in noise reduction has been significant and largely made possible through land use planning, noise certification, and investment into low noise technology development. More recent progress however shows increasingly diminishing returns and suggests that new avenues may need to be discovered to pursue the aggressive noise reduction goals of the present and the future. This paper focuses on the research efforts of NASA in Propulsion Airframe Aeroacoustics (PAA) through advanced engine installations and configurations, which is offered as an avenue that has potential to provide significant noise reduction. PAA is further defined and the classification tree is presented as a means of organizing PAA effects. Several aircraft configurations and engine installations, both conventional and advanced, that are designed to take advantage of airframe shielding of engine noise are presented and discussed from both a PAA and a general design perspective. Other, non-shielding related PAA opportunities are also presented. Challenges to the eventual introduction of advanced aircraft configurations are discussed.

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