Aeroacoustic tests of seven airfoils were performed in an open jet anechoic wind tunnel. Six of the airfoils are candidates for use on small wind turbines operating at low Reynolds numbers. One airfoil was tested for comparison to benchmark data. Tests were conducted with and without boundary layer tripping. In some cases, a turbulence grid was placed upstream in the test section to investigate inflow turbulence noise. An array of 48 microphones was used to locate noise sources and separate airfoil noise from extraneous tunnel noise. Trailing-edge noise was dominant for all airfoils in clean tunnel flow. With the boundary layer untripped, several airfoils exhibited pure tones that disappeared after proper tripping was applied. In the presence of inflow turbulence, leading-edge noise was dominant for all airfoils.

Issue Section:
Technical Papers
Keywords:
wind turbines, aeroacoustics, wind tunnels, acoustic noise, boundary layer turbulence
Topics:
Airfoils, Noise (Sound), Spectra (Spectroscopy), Wind turbines, Wind tunnels, Boundary layers, Turbulence
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