Indirect noise from weakly reacting inhomogeneities

Abstract: Indirect noise is a significant contributor to aircraft engine noise, which needs to be minimized in the design of aircraft engines. Indirect noise is caused by the acceleration of flow inhomogeneities through a nozzle. High-fidelity simulations showed that some flow inhomogeneities can be chemically reacting when they leave the combustor and enter the nozzle (Giusti et al., 2019). The state-of-art models, however, are limited to chemically non-reacting (frozen) flows. In this work, first, we propose a low-order model to predict indirect noise in nozzle flows with reacting inhomogeneities. Second, we identify the physical sources of sound, which generate indirect noise via two physical mechanisms: (i) chemical reaction generates compositional perturbations, thereby adding to compositional noise; and (ii) exothermic reaction generates entropy perturbations. Third, we numerically compute the nozzle transfer functions for different frequency ranges (Helmholtz numbers) and reaction rates (Damk\"{o}hler numbers) in subsonic flows with hydrogen and methane inhomogeneities. Fourth, we extend the model to supersonic flows. We find that hydrogen inhomogeneities have a larger impact to indirect noise than methane inhomogeneities. Both the Damk\"{o}hler number and the Helmholtz number markedly influence the phase and magnitude of the transmitted and reflected waves, which affect the sound generation and thermoacoustic stability. This work provides a physics-based low-order model, which can open new opportunities for predicting noise emissions and instabilities in aeronautical gas turbines with multi-physics flows.