Modeling Boundary Layer Generated Interior Noise

Analytical investigations are summarized of the sound produced by a discrete vortex and by boundary layer turbulence interacting with nominally smooth rib-stiffeners on a thin elastic plate. This is a canonical fluid-structure interaction that is believed to be an important source of boundary layer generated aircraft interior noise. The configuration models a section of an aircraft fuselage that may be regarded as locally flat, and the problems are soluble in closed forms that represent the acoustic radiation in terms of prescribed wall pressure fluctuations. Two cases are considered: (i) the production of sound at an isolated panel edge (i.e., in the approximation in which the correlation between sound and vibrations generated at neighboring edges is neglected), and (ii) the sound generated by a periodic arrangement of identical panels. These analytical solutions of simplified fluid-structure interactions can used to validate more general numerical prediction schemes.