Numerical Study on Flow and Noise Characteristics of an NACA0018 Airfoil with a Porous Trailing Edge

An airfoil with a porous trailing edge has a low noise emission; thus, using a porous medium is a good technique for further reduction of wind turbine noise. In this paper, to reduce airfoil trailing edge noise while minimizing the negative influence of a porous medium on aerodynamic performance, a new filling method is proposed such that a porous medium is only used in the suction side half of the trailing edge, which is more sensitive to the noise generation. The large eddy simulation (LES) technique for flow and the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) method for acoustics are used. At a Reynolds number of 2.63 × 105 and various angles of attack, an NACA0018 airfoil profile with a porous trailing edge covering 20% of the chord is studied under two porous configurations, namely a fully porous and a suction-side porous trailing edge type. The results show that the flow direction, velocity magnitude, and their distributions along the boundary layer of the two porous airfoils are significantly modified due to the presence of the porous medium. The fluctuation of the pressure coefficient and the increase in the boundary layer thickness are significant at low angles of attack. As compared to the solid airfoil counterpart, the noise radiation from the newly proposed suction-side porous airfoil achieves a noise reduction of 4.3 dB at an angle of attack α = 0°, and a noise reduction of 4.07 dB at an angle of attack α = 2°.