Aeroacoustic and aerodynamic optimization of propeller blades

It is of great significance to develop a high-efficiency and low-noise propeller optimization method for new-generation propeller aircraft design. Coupled with free form deformation method, dynamic mesh interpolation technology, optimization algorithm, surrogate model, aerodynamic calculation and aeroacoustic prediction model module, the integrated aerodynamic and aeroacoustic design method of propeller is built. The optimization design for the six-blade propeller is carried out. The non-reduction in efficiency, thrust coefficient and the minimum of aerodynamic noise is treated as the optimization design objective. The spatial vorticity distribution of the propeller before and after the design is also analyzed by using unsteady computational fluid dynamics method. The results show that the optimized propeller can effectively reduce the aerodynamic noise level. The maximum total sound pressure level can be reduced by 5 dB without reducing its aerodynamic performance. The developed method has good application potential in low-noise optimization design of propeller and other rotating machinery. (C) 2019 Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-NDlicense (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).