Experimental Assessment of Low Noise Landing Gear Component Design

Landing gear related airframe noise is one of the dominant aircraft noise components at approach, so continued research efforts to reduce landing gear noise are essential. This paper describes further development of an advanced low noise main landing gear that was previously designed and tested in the European SILENCER project. The work was carried out under the current European co-financed TIMPAN project (Technologies to IMProve Airframe Noise) using a ¼ scaled landing gear model that was tested in the German-Dutch Wind Tunnel. A variety of gear configurations were tested including a new side-stay design and various modifications to the bogie inclination, wheel spacing, bogie fairings with different flow transparency, leg-door configurations and brake fairings. The farfield noise data from the tests are compared with results from a landing gear noise prediction model, transposed to full scale flight conditions and compared with the full scale test data obtained for the original SILENCER advanced A340 style 4-wheel main landing gear. An optimal combination of tested gear modifications led to a further noise reduction of up to 8 dB(A) in terms of overall A-weighted noise levels relative to the original advanced gear configuration.

[1]  Nicolas Molin,et al.  Control of Noise Sources on Aircraft Landing Gear Bogies , 2006 .

[2]  Rolf Radespiel,et al.  Numerical Simulation of a Wing with a Gapless High-Lift System Using Circulation Control , 2007 .

[3]  Werner Dobrzynski,et al.  Prediction of low noise aircraft landing gears and comparison with test results , 2006 .

[4]  R. Amiet,et al.  Correction of open jet wind tunnel measurements for shear layer refraction , 1975 .

[5]  Ricardo A. Burdisso,et al.  Noise Control of Landing Gears Using Elastic Membrane-Based Fairings , 2007 .

[6]  Robert J. Englar,et al.  Design of the Circulation Control Wing STOL Demonstrator Aircraft , 1981 .

[7]  Hugo E. Camargo,et al.  Noise Reduction of a Model-Scale Landing Gear Measured in the Virginia Tech Aeroacoustic Wind Tunnel , 2008 .

[8]  Xun Huang,et al.  Streamwise and spanwise plasma actuators for flow-induced cavity noise control , 2008 .

[9]  C. Novak,et al.  Experimental investigations of the circular wall jet on a circulation control airfoil , 1987 .

[10]  C. Yao,et al.  Experimental Investigation of a 2D Supercritical Circulation-Control Airfoil Using Particle Image Velocimetry , 2006 .

[11]  D. K. McLaughlin,et al.  Recent Aeroacoustics Research in the United States , 2000 .

[12]  Amal Abeysinghe,et al.  QTD 2 (Quiet Technology Demonstrator 2) Main Landing Gear Noise Reduction Fairing Design and Analysis , 2007 .

[13]  Ronald D. Joslin,et al.  Advantages of Combining BLC Suction with Circulation Control High-Lift Generation , 2006 .

[14]  Rolf Radespiel,et al.  Experimental and Numerical Investigation of a Circulation Control Airfoil , 2009 .

[15]  Gregory S. Jones,et al.  Overview of Circulation Control Pneumatic Aerodynamics: Blown Force and Moment Augmentation and Modification as Applied Primarily to Fixed-Wing Aircraft , 2006 .

[16]  J. Roth,et al.  Aerodynamic flow acceleration using paraelectric and peristaltic electrohydrodynamic effects of a One Atmosphere Uniform Glow Discharge Plasma , 2003 .

[17]  Henry E. Bass,et al.  Atmospheric absorption of sound: Update , 1990 .

[18]  Christian J. Kähler,et al.  Wall-shear-stress and near-wall turbulence measurements up to single pixel resolution by means of long-distance micro-PIV , 2006 .

[19]  J. Roth,et al.  Electrohydrodynamic Flow Control with a Glow-Discharge Surface Plasma , 2000 .

[20]  Rolf Radespiel,et al.  Measurement of a Laminar Separation Bubble on a Swept Horizontal Tailplane Using µPIV , 2008 .

[21]  J. R. Roth.  Electrohydrodynamically induced airflow in a one atmosphere uniform glow discharge surface plasma , 1998, 25th Anniversary, IEEE Conference Record - Abstracts. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (Cat. No.98CH36221).

[22]  Srinivasan Arunajatesan,et al.  Large Eddy Simulation of a Circulation Control Airfoil , 2006 .

[23]  P. Spalart.  A One-Equation Turbulence Model for Aerodynamic Flows , 1992 .

[24]  Werner Dobrzynski,et al.  Design and Testing of Low Noise Landing Gears , 2005 .

[25]  P. Spalart,et al.  Turbulence Modeling in Rotating and Curved Channels: Assessing the Spalart-Shur Correction , 2000 .

[26]  Gregory S. Jones,et al.  Simulation of Steady Circulation Control for the General Aviation Circulation Control (GACC) Wing , 2006 .

[27]  Xin Zhang,et al.  The attenuation of cavity tones using plasma actuators , 2005 .

[28]  Ricardo A. Burdisso,et al.  Wind Tunnel Aeroacoustic Measurements of a 26%-scale 777 Main Landing Gear , 2004 .

[29]  Eric Moreau,et al.  Airflow control by non-thermal plasma actuators , 2007 .

[30]  Yueping Guo.  A Study on Local Flow Variations for Landing Gear Noise Research , 2008 .

[31]  Millard J Bamber.  Wind-Tunnel Tests on Airfoil Boundary Layer Control Using a Backward-Opening Slot , 1932 .

[32]  Christopher L. Rumsey,et al.  Numerical Issues for Circulation Control Calculations , 2006 .

[33]  Xun Huang,et al.  Variable structure model for flow-induced tonal noise control with plasma actuators , 2007 .

[34]  Nicolas Molin,et al.  Perforated fairings for landing gear noise control , 2008 .

[35]  Werner Dobrzynski,et al.  Research into Landing Gear Airframe Noise Reduction , 2002 .

[36]  Thomas Gerhold,et al.  Overview of the Hybrid RANS Code TAU , 2005 .

[37]  Malcolm Smith,et al.  Validation of a prediction model for aerodynamic noise from aircraft landing gear , 2002 .

[38]  Werner Dobrzynski,et al.  Full-Scale Noise Testing on Airbus Landing Gears in the German-Dutch Wind Tunnel. , 1997 .