Comparative Assessment of Isolated Propeller Noise Test Rigs

Commercial aircraft electrification and novel urban air mobility vehicles under development have brought renewed interest in propeller noise to the research community. The complex noise generation mechanisms and broad range of possible configurations lead to the development of a large number of propeller noise test rigs. However, the effects of test rig configuration, installation, and instrumentation on the experimental results are still unclear. In this work, the comparison of the results obtained by two different institutes, the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil) and TU Delft (The Netherlands), is presented.A pair of identical propellers, used for acoustic benchmark studies, were tested under the same conditions to compare the effects of the test rigs on the noise results. A good agreement is observed for thrust and torque. Some divergences on the acoustic data were observed. However, good agreement was noted at the first harmonic and overall sound pressure level, with a maximum difference of 1.8 and 2.8 dB, respectively.