Flow Field and Acoustic Measurements of a Blunt Trailing Edge

This dissertation presents experimental results regarding the phenomenon of trailing edge noise. The objective of the present research was to experimentally measure flow field and acoustic variables in order to develop an understanding of the mechanisms that generate trailing edge noise in incompressible, high Reynolds number flows. This includes the measurement of the local velocity field, the unsteady surface pressure, and the radiated sound. These data have supplied a unique database of both the turbulence and the radiated far field pressure. In addition, two-component velocity measurements were acquired using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) in order to spatially resolve the local velocity field. The data show velocity field realizations that were typical of wake flow containing an asymmetric periodic vortex shedding. Beamforming methods were utilized in conjunction with a pair of 40 microphone arrays to isolate trailing edge noise from unwanted tunnel noise. The measured acoustic sources show good agreement with numerical results obtained through LES.