This paper presents a comprehensive experimental aeroacoustic investigation of a propeller under turbulence ingestion. Two turbulence-generating passive grids were utilized to quantify the effect of turbulence intensity on the aeroacoustic characteristics of the propeller. A two-component hot-wire anemometry was employed to study the flow field. The flow field results demonstrate a substantial increase in fluctuating velocity components in both axial and radial directions, concentrated at the mid-span of the blade and near the tip, respectively. Energy spectral analysis in the vicinity of the propeller blade shows significantly higher broadband energy levels with multiple haystacking peaks at the harmonics of the blade passage frequency. Far-field noise and load measurement results show that turbulence ingestion has a strong effect on the aerodynamic loading and acoustic response at the blade passage frequency. The directivity of noise radiation at low frequency shows a significant tonal noise contribution. Meanwhile, broadband noise radiation is more dominant at a higher range of frequency, especially when the propeller is operated with turbulence ingestion and at higher advance ratio settings. The far-field noise results revealed the haystacking trends in the low frequency domain of the spectra and are most significant for propellers operating in turbulent inflows.

This paper presents an experimental investigation into the effects of turbulence ingestion on the aerodynamic noise characteristics of rotor blades in edgewise flight. A small-scaled, two-bladed rotor was used in the study. The test utilised two turbulence-generating grids, to generate turbulence inflows with different characteristics, and to compare them to the baseline configuration of the laminar inflow. The experiments were set at forwarding edgewise flight configuration, with freestream inflow velocity ranging from 10 m/s to 22 m/s. Simultaneous measurements of far-field acoustic pressure and load were conducted, along with a separate flow measurement using particle image velocimetry. The acoustic spectra demonstrated a larger contribution to the tonal noise radiation at blade passing frequency, and to the broadband noise radiation at the mid-frequency domain, due to turbulence ingestion. However, the broadband responses in the high-frequency domain were comparable between the tested laminar and turbulence inflow cases, with similar broadband humps featuring in the acoustic spectra. The directivity patterns of the overall sound pressure level showed that the noise radiation was lowest near the plane of rotation, and highest downstream. Turbulence ingestion effects could also be seen in the elevated noise levels throughout the observation positions for the grid inflow cases, particularly at larger advance ratios.