WHISTLES WITH A GENERIC SIDEBRANCH: PRODUCTION AND SUPPRESSION

The present study investigates experimentally the production and suppression of whistle noise resulting from the shear layer instabilities coupled with the acoustic resonances at the interface of two ducts, a main duct and connecting sidebranch. A generic sidebranch adapter is built to allow for mounting downstream of the throttle body in the induction system of a production engine, and the adjustment of sidebranch length. The adapter has also the provision to investigate a number of suppression methods such as: (1) ramps mounted in the main duct right upstream of the sidebranch opening; (2) a spacer to increase the distance between the throttle plate and sidebranch opening; and (3) the rotation of the throttle body from its original position. Experiments with the same hardware are conducted in both a flow laboratory and an engine dynamometer facility. The effectiveness of these suppression techniques is examined experimentally along with the correlation between the two facilities.