| If you want to make aircraft engines
quieter, sooner or later you have to listen to an engine.
Ground tests of an engine give important information
that can’t be obtained through scale model component
tests or flight tests.
Was that core noise or was that fan noise? Does the
noise reduction treatment we added need to be adjusted?
These are the types of questions we have in mind when
we run acoustic tests of engines in the AeroAcoustic
Propulsion Lab.
The AeroAcoustic Propulsion Laboratory, (aka “The
Dome”), has proven to be an ideal location for
engine noise tests—from pulsed detonation subsystems
to full fighter aircraft engines.
What makes the Dome unique? Topping the list is the
ability to vent the hot engine exhaust through the
large door of the Dome without using noisy flow collectors.
And since anechoic wedges are installed on all surfaces
inside the 65 foot radius geodesic Dome, far-field
sound measurements aren’t contaminated by community
noise or by reflections from lab equipment.
The AeroAcoustic Propulsion Lab has access to continuous
flow compressed air at 100 psi, 150 psi, and 450 psi,
as well as to compressed gas trailers (typically natural
gas and hydrogen). Couple these services with the state-of-the-art
instrumentation we have, and it is hard to imagine
a better place to solve complicated engine noise problems.
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