Sound Produced by Large Area-Ratio Nozzles During Fixed and Transient Operations

Analysis of the acoustic signature produced by truncated ideal contour and thrust-optimized parabolic nozzles is conducted during both fixed and transient (startup) operations. The truncated ideal contour nozzle experiences free-shock separation flow, whereas the thrust-optimized parabolic nozzle experiences both free-shock separation and restricted-shock separation flow states during startup. This study provides a direct comparison of the acoustic signature produced during free-shock separation and restricted-shock separation flow states while operating under identical nozzle pressure ratios. During a transient episode, the continuous wavelet transform is used to compare the acoustic signatures produced by the nozzles. The truncated ideal contour nozzle demonstrates a gradual increase in broadband frequency energy with increasing nozzle pressure ratio and with broadband shock noise appearing at higher nozzle pressure ratios. The thrust-optimized parabolic nozzle, however, displays a much larger sensitivity to the nozzle pressure ratio. In particular, the free-shock separation to restricted-shock separation transition, which occurs around nozzle pressure ratio 24.4, is weakly revealed in the acoustic signature along sideline angles to the nozzle. At nozzle pressure ratio 13, the acoustic signal observed at shallow angles to the nozzle decreases abruptly across a broad range of frequencies. The latter phenomenon is attributed to the formation of an open-ended subsonic core surrounded by a supersonic annular flow in the thrust-optimized parabolic nozzle during free-shock separation operations of the nozzle, which does not occur in the truncated ideal contour nozzle.