Aerodynamic noise from a poroelastic edge with implications for the silent flight of owls

The interaction of a turbulent eddy with a semi-infinite poroelastic edge is examined with respect to the effects of both elasticity and porosity on the efficiency of aerodynamic noise generation. The scattering problem is solved using the Wiener–Hopf technique to identify the scaling dependence of the resulting aerodynamic noise on plate and flow properties, including the dependence on a characteristic flow velocity U . Special attention is paid to the limiting cases of porous-rigid and impermeable–elastic plate conditions. Asymptotic analysis of these special cases reveals parametric limits where the far-field acoustic power scales like U⁶ for a porous edge, and a new finite range of U⁷ behaviour is found for an elastic edge, to be compared with the well-known U⁵ dependence for a rigid impermeable edge. Further numerical results attempt to address how trailing-edge noise may be mitigated by porosity and flexibility and seek to deepen the understanding of how owls hunt in acoustic stealth.