Acoustic measurements of models of military style supersonic nozzle jets

Modern military aircraft jet engines are designed with variable-geometry nozzles to provide optimal thrust in different operating conditions, depending on the flight envelope. However, acoustic measurements for such nozzles are scarce, due to the cost involved in making full-scale measurements and the lack of details about the exact geometries of these nozzles. Thus the present effort at Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in partnership with GE Aviation and the NASA Glenn Research Center is aiming to study and characterize the acoustic field produced by supersonic jets issuing from converging-diverging military style nozzles, and to identify and test promising noise reduction techniques. An equally important objective is to develop methodology for using data obtained from small- and moderate-scale experiments to reliably predict the full-scale engine noise. The experimental results presented show reasonable agreement between small-scale and medium-scale jets, as well as between heated jets and heat-simulated ones.