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Papers by Taylor B Spalt

A high fidelity aeroacoustic test was conducted in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunne... more A high fidelity aeroacoustic test was conducted in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to establish a detailed database of component noise for a 5.8% scale HWB aircraft configuration. The model has a modular design, which includes a drooped and a stowed wing leading edge, deflectable elevons, twin verticals, and a landing gear system with geometrically scaled wheel-wells. The model is mounted inverted in the test section and noise measurements are acquired at different streamwise stations from an overhead microphone phased array and from overhead and sideline microphones. Noise source distribution maps and component noise spectra are presented for airframe configurations representing two different approach flight conditions. Array measurements performed along the aircraft flyover line show the main landing gear to be the dominant contributor to the total airframe noise, followed by the nose gear, the inboard side-edges of the LE droop, the wing tip/LE droop outboard side-edges, and the side-edges of deployed elevons. Velocity dependence and flyover directivity are presented for the main noise components. Decorrelation effects from turbulence scattering on spectral levels measured with the microphone phased array are discussed. Finally, noise directivity maps obtained from the overhead and sideline microphone measurements for the landing gear system are provided for a broad range of observer locations.

A new aeroacoustic measurement capability has been developed for use in open-jet testing in the N... more A new aeroacoustic measurement capability has been developed for use in open-jet testing in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel (14x22 tunnel). A suite of instruments has been developed to characterize noise source strengths, locations, and directivity for both semi-span and full-span test articles in the facility. The primary instrument of the suite is a fully traversable microphone phased array for identification of noise source locations and strengths on models. The array can be mounted in the ceiling or on either side of the facility test section to accommodate various test article configurations. Complementing the phased array is an ensemble of streamwise traversing microphones that can be placed around the test section at defined locations to conduct noise source directivity studies along both flyover and sideline axes. A customized data acquisition system has been developed for the instrumentation suite that allows for command and control of all aspects of the array and microphone hardware, and is coupled with a comprehensive data reduction system to generate information in near real time. This information includes such items as time histories and spectral data for individual microphones and groups of microphones, contour presentations of noise source locations and strengths, and hemispherical directivity data. The data acquisition system integrates with the 14x22 tunnel data system to allow real time capture of facility parameters during acquisition of microphone data. Performance analysis of the array using a coarray figure of merit and synthetic point spread functions using monopole sources show that the array design is adequate for its intended purpose in the facility. Although the instrumentation suite is designed to characterize noise for a variety of test articles in the 14x22 tunnel, this paper concentrates on use of the instruments for two specific campaigns in the facility, namely a full-span NASA Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) model entry and a semi-span Gulfstream aircraft model entry, tested in the facility in the winter of 2012 and spring of 2013, respectively.

Metrics of NASA Langley’s 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel in the acoustic configuration are provid... more Metrics of NASA Langley’s 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel in the acoustic configuration are provided. The background noise levels are given over a free-stream Mach number range of 0.11 to 0.23. Two room-acoustic tests were conducted: one in which speakers were driven to steady state and abruptly turned off (interrupted noise), and another which set off a blast at the approximate model location (impulse response). Data were acquired on a partial hemisphere surrounding the model location. Novel processing, which combined the use of Fourier transforms and the separation of acquired signals into separate parts, was used to enable the calculation of tunnel acoustic characteristics from the data. Although the two tests were complementary, the impulse response test outputs were more accurate than those obtained from the interrupted noise test. The impulse response data were then used to calculate the power ratio between the direct arrival of signal to the microphones and that due to reflections and reverberation, the power ratio of the direct signal to the reverberation only, and the reverberation time at different measurement locations within the tunnel. Implications of the room-acoustic testing methodology and novel processing are discussed. The results may be useful in future model test planning.

An advanced vehicle concept, the HWB N2A-EXTE aircraft design, was tested in NASA Langley's 14- b... more An advanced vehicle concept, the HWB N2A-EXTE aircraft design, was tested in NASA Langley's 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel to study its acoustic characteristics for various propulsion system installation and airframe configurations. A significant upgrade to existing data processing systems was implemented, with a focus on portability and a reduction in turnaround time. These requirements were met by updating codes originally written for a cluster environment and transferring them to a local workstation while enabling GPU computing. Post-test, additional processing of the time series was required to remove transient hydrodynamic gusts from some of the microphone time series. A novel automated procedure was developed to analyze and reject contaminated blocks of data, under the assumption that the desired acoustic signal of interest was a band-limited stationary random process, and of lower variance than the hydrodynamic contamination. The procedure is shown to successfully identify and remove contaminated blocks of data and retain the desired acoustic signal. Additional corrections to the data, mainly background subtraction, shear layer refraction calculations, atmospheric attenuation and microphone directivity corrections, were all necessary for initial analysis and noise assessments. These were implemented for the post-processing of spectral data, and are shown to behave as expected.

A hybrid wing body transport aircraft model was tested in NASA Langley’s 14 by 22 Foot Subsonic T... more A hybrid wing body transport aircraft model was tested in NASA Langley’s 14 by 22 Foot Subsonic Tunnel to evaluate proposed “low noise” technology. The experiment was set up to evaluate the community noise impact of the hybrid wing body design, as well as study the noise components of propulsion-airframe noise and shielding. A high fidelity 5.8-percent scale model, including landing gear, cruise and drooped wing leading edges, trailing edge elevons, vertical tail options, and engine noise simulators, was built to test both aerodynamic and acoustic configurations. The aerodynamic test data were used to establish appropriate flight conditions for the acoustic test. To accomplish the acoustic portion of this test, two major upgrades were required of NASA Langley’s 14 by 22 Foot Subsonic Tunnel; first, a fuel delivery system to provide realistic gas temperatures to the jet engine simulators; and second, a traversing microphone array and side towers to measure full spectral and directivity noise characteristics. The results of this test provide benchmark hybrid wing body aircraft and noise shielding data to assist in achieving NASA’s 2020 noise emission goals.

Background noise due to flow in wind tunnels contaminates desired data by decreasing the Signal-t... more Background noise due to flow in wind tunnels contaminates desired data by decreasing the Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The use of Adaptive Noise Cancellation to remove background noise at measurement microphones is compromised when the reference microphone measures both background and desired noise. The technique proposed modifies the classical processing implementation based on the cross-correlation between the reference and primary microphone. Background noise attenuation is achieved using a cross-correlation sample width that encompasses only the background noise and a matched delay for the adaptive processing. A present limitation of the method is that a minimum time delay between the background noise and desired signal must exist in order for the correlated parts of the desired signal to be separated from the background noise in the cross-correlation. A simulation yields desired signal recovery which can be predicted from the coherence of the background noise between the channels. Results are compared with two existing methods.

Background noise in wind tunnel environments poses a challenge to acoustic measurements due to po... more Background noise in wind tunnel environments poses a challenge to acoustic measurements due to possible low or negative Signal to Noise Ratios (SNRs) present in the testing environment. This paper overviews the application of time domain Adaptive Noise Cancellation (ANC) to microphone array signals with an intended application of background noise reduction in wind tunnels. An experiment was conducted to simulate background noise from a wind tunnel circuit measured by an out-of-flow microphone array in the tunnel test section. A reference microphone was used to acquire a background noise signal which interfered with the desired primary noise source signal at the array. The technique’s efficacy was investigated using frequency spectra from the array microphones, array beamforming of the point source region, and subsequent deconvolution using the Deconvolution Approach for the Mapping of Acoustic Sources (DAMAS) algorithm. Comparisons were made with the conventional techniques for improving SNR of spectral and Cross-Spectral Matrix subtraction. The method was seen to recover the primary signal level in SNRs as low as -29 dB and outperform the conventional methods. A second processing approach using the center array microphone as the noise reference was investigated for more general applicability of the ANC technique. It outperformed the conventional methods at the -29 dB SNR but yielded less accurate results when coherence over the array dropped. This approach could possibly improve conventional testing methodology but must be investigated further under more realistic testing conditions.

Microphone arrays are utilized in aeroacoustic testing to spatially map the sound emitted from an... more Microphone arrays are utilized in aeroacoustic testing to spatially map the sound emitted from an article under study. Whereas a single microphone allows only the total sound level to be estimated at the measurement location, an array permits differentiation between the contributions of distinct components. The accuracy of these spatial sound estimates produced by post-processing the array outputs is continuously being improved. One way of increasing the estimation accuracy is to filter the array outputs before they become inputs to a post-processor. This work presents a constrained method of linear filtering for microphone arrays which minimizes the total signal present on the array channels while preserving the signal from a targeted spatial location. Thus, each single-channel, filtered output for a given targeted location estimates only the signal from that location, even when multiple and/or distributed sources have been measured simultaneously. The method is based on Conditioned Spectral Analysis and modifies the Wiener-Hopf equation in a manner similar to the Generalized Sidelobe Canceller. This modified form of Conditioned Spectral Analysis is embedded within an iterative loop and termed Constrained Spectral Conditioning. Linear constraints are derived which prevent the cancellation of targeted signal due to random statistical error as well as location error in the sensor and/or source positions. The increased spatial mapping accuracy of Constrained Spectral Conditioning is shown for a simulated dataset of point sources which vary in strength. An experimental point source is used to validate the efficacy of the constraints which yield preservation of the targeted signal at the expense of reduced filtering ability. The beamforming results of a cold, supersonic jet demonstrate the qualitative and quantitative improvement obtained when using this technique to map a spatially-distributed, complex, and possibly coherent sound source.

Drafts by Taylor B Spalt

A more computationally-efficient version of the sensor-array preprocessing algorithm Constrained ... more A more computationally-efficient version of the sensor-array preprocessing algorithm Constrained Spectral Conditioning is presented. The new formulation processes the cross-spectral matrix formed from the output data of a sensor array as opposed to the Fourier transforms, which limits its filtering capability compared to the original. A single-source simulation is used to demonstrate the resolution and sidelobe level improvements obtained by preprocessing the data, which translates to higher spatial mapping accuracy in a four-source setup. Finally, the single-source setup is used to compare the processing time of the original version to that developed herein, and the new formulation is shown to be generally more computationally-efficient than the original.

Thesis Chapters by Taylor B Spalt

Two experiments were conducted to investigate Adaptive Noise Cancelling and Cepstrum echo removal... more Two experiments were conducted to investigate Adaptive Noise Cancelling and Cepstrum echo removal post-processing techniques on acoustic data from a linear microphone array in an anechoic chamber. A point source speaker driven with white noise was used as the primary signal. The first experiment included a background speaker to provide interference noise at three different Signal-to-Noise Ratios to simulate noise propagating down a wind tunnel circuit. The second experiment contained only the primary source and the wedges were removed from the floor to simulate reflections found in a wind tunnel environment.
The techniques were applicable to both signal microphone and array analysis. The Adaptive Noise Cancellation proved successful in its task of removing the background noise from the microphone signals at SNRs as low as -20 dB. The recovered signals were then used for array processing. A simulation reflection case was analyzed with the Cepstral technique. Accurate removal of the reflection effects was achieved in recovering both magnitude and phase of the direct signal. Experimental data resulted in Cepstral features that caused errors in phase accuracy. A simple phase correction procedure was proposed for this data, but in general it appears that the Cepstral technique is and would be not well suited for all experimental data.