AIAA JOURNAL

Vol. 60, No. 7, July 2022

Experimental Investigation of Flow and Noise Control

by Porous Coated Tandem Cylinder Configurations

Thomas F. Geyer∗
Technical Acoustics Group, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus - Senftenberg,
03046 Cottbus, Germany
https://doi.org/10.2514/1.J061180
The aerodynamic noise generated by aircraft landing gear components is often studied using a so-called tandem
cylinder configuration, consisting of two circular cylinders arranged in a streamwise row and separated by a certain
distance. The subject of the present study is the experimental investigation of the effect of porous coatings on the noise
generated by such a tandem cylinder configuration. This was done by performing acoustic and flow measurements in
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a small aeroacoustic wind tunnel at Reynolds numbers (based on cylinder diameter) between 30,000 and 130,000. It is
found that the porous coatings lead to a decrease of both the tonal noise and the broadband noise and to a notable shift
of the resulting tonal noise peak toward lower frequencies. The noise reduction is mainly caused by the stabilizing
effect of the coating of the upstream cylinder on the wake flow and the absorption of turbulence by the coating of the
downstream cylinder. The observed shift of the frequency is most likely due to the mean velocity reduction in the wake
of the porous coated upstream cylinder and the interaction of the turbulent flow with the porous coating of the
downstream cylinder.

I. Introduction simulations. This includes effects such as cylinder spacing [10,15],

T ANDEM cylinder configurations are often examined in aero-
acoustic studies, as they constitute a simplified model for air-
craft landing gear components. In such a configuration, a circular
cylinder in a crossflow generates a turbulent wake that interacts with a
second cylinder located at a certain distance downstream of the first
cylinder. This interaction leads to a strong generation of both tonal
noise and broadband noise. In one of the configurations of the official
tandem cylinder benchmark, the two cylinders have the same diam-
eter d and the distance between them is 3.7d [1]. One of the results in
the work of Khorrami et al. [2] are spectra of the velocity fluctuations
in the wake of this configuration and in the wake of a single cylinder.
It has to be mentioned, though, that in this configuration transition
strips were applied to the upstream cylinder to produce a turbulent
boundary layer. The single-cylinder configuration leads to a narrow-
band peak at a Strouhal number Sr (based on cylinder diameter) of
0.29. Adding the second cylinder produces a narrow peak as well, but
at a lower Strouhal number of Sr
0.24. According to Wu et al. [3],
the vortex shedding from the upstream cylinder is suppressed when the
second cylinder is placed at distances less than 4d behind the upstream
cylinder. This leads to an increased spanwise coherence and a reduc-
tion of the shedding frequency compared to the single-cylinder case.
Benchmark tandem cylinder experiments were conducted at the
Quiet Flow Facility (QFF) at NASA [4] with diameter d
57.15 mm,
an aspect ratio (ratio of length to diameter) of 16, and a Reynolds
number of Re
1.66 ⋅ 105 (based on d). As the benchmark contains
a variety of experimental data, including surface pressures on the
cylinders, velocity fluctuations in the wake, and far-field sound pres-
sure levels, there are a large number of experimental and numeri-
cal investigations available that aim to replicate these results (e.g.,
[1,2,4–12]).
Since landing gear noise is one of the major noise sources during
the landing phase [13,14], tandem cylinder configurations have been
studied extensively in the past by means of both experiments and
Presented as Paper 2021-2266 at the AIAA Aviation 2021 Forum, Virtual
Event, August 2–6, 2021; received 15 August 2021; revision received 3
February 2022; accepted for publication 18 February 2022; published online
15 March 2022. Copyright © 2021 by the authors. Published by the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission. All requests
for copying and permission to reprint should be submitted to CCC at www.
copyright.com; employ the eISSN 1533-385X to initiate your request. See
also AIAA Rights and Permissions www.aiaa.org/randp.
*Senior Researcher; currently Institute of Electrified Aero Engines,
German Aerospace Center, 03050 Cottbus, Germany; thomas.geyer@dlr.de.
Member AIAA.
4091
different cross-sectional areas [16–20], a nonzero angle of incidence
(staggering of the cylinders) [21–23], the yawing of the upstream [24]
or downstream cylinder [25], and measures to actively or passively
reduce noise or related vibrations [26–29]. The current review is by
no means complete, and the reader is rather referred to the reviews
given in [30,31] to obtain a more complete overview on the flow
around various tandem cylinder configurations.
In recent years, the application of flow-permeable materials to
bluff bodies with the aim of reducing the aerodynamic noise has
more and more become a research field of great interest. This
includes, but is not limited to, porous material applied to cylinders
(see, e.g., [32–36]) and airfoils (see, e.g., [37–46]). Based on prom-
ising results obtained for the reduction of vortex shedding noise from
single cylinders coated with porous materials by the author [47–49],
the main purpose of the present study is to experimentally investigate
the potential reduction of tandem cylinder noise using porous
material. Thereby, the study focuses on the tonal noise generation,
which is due to the periodic shedding of vortices from the cylinders.
So far, the numerical studies by Liu et al. [50,51] are the only
published cases where the use of porous coatings on tandem cylin-
der configurations was investigated. Their work consisted of two-
dimensional unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS)
simulations, coupled with the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings analogy
[52], on porous cylinder coatings in a tandem cylinder configuration,
at the same Reynolds number of 1.66 ⋅ 105 that was used in the
benchmark study [4]. Both the porosity and the thickness of the
porous material were varied, with the first taking values of 0.8 and
0.95 and the latter taking values of h∕d
0.1, 0.15, and 0.2 (nor-
malized with the inner diameter). Their results showed that porous
coatings decrease the peak level and the frequency of the dominant
tone and that high porosities and large thicknesses are especially
beneficial. They identified three overall mechanisms that contrib-
ute to the far-field noise reduction: The most efficient one is that a
porous coating of the upstream cylinder stabilizes the wake (upstream
cylinder wake control). In addition, a coating of the downstream
cylinder leads to the absorption of turbulent energy from the flow
(impingement absorption) and to a stabilization of the wake from the
downstream cylinder (downstream cylinder wake control). Thus, a
modification of the upstream cylinder was found to have a much
stronger effect than a modification of the downstream cylinder.
Inspired by the results of these numerical investigations [50,51]
and because no experimental results are currently available, the aim
of the present study is to provide experimental evidence for the noise
reducing potential of porous cylinder coatings in such a tandem
 4092
cylinder configuration. To this end, a variety of measurements on
tandem cylinder configurations modified with porous materials were
conducted in an aeroacoustic wind tunnel. Thereby, the goal is to
identify the influence of the porous material parameters on the tonal
noise generation and to help understanding the underlying physics.
However, it is important to note that due to practical restrictions the
present investigation does not exactly replicate the cases studied by
Liu et al. [50,51].
This paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II, the experimental
setup is explained in detail, including the wind tunnel, the cylinder
models as well as acoustic and flow measurement techniques. Results
from the far-field noise measurements and flow measurements are
then shown and discussed in Sec. III, while the last section gives
conclusions of the study.
II. Experimental Setup
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A. Wind Tunnel
Experiments were conducted in the small aeroacoustic open jet wind
tunnel at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus,
Germany, which has a very low background noise [53]. For the
measurements on tandem cylinder configurations, the wind tunnel
was equipped with a nozzle with rectangular exit area of 0.23 m×
0.28 m, which allows for maximum flow velocities of approximately
60 m∕s. At a flow speed of 50 m∕s, the turbulence intensity in front of
the nozzle is in the order of 0.2%. The velocity is set by adjusting the
pressure inside the settling chamber, which is measured using a
pressure transducer with a high accuracy of 0.073% Full Scale (FS).
The cylinders were attached to side plates made of acrylic glass,
which were mounted to the top and bottom of the nozzle (see Fig. 1a).
During acoustic measurements, the test section is surrounded by
sound absorbing side walls made of 0.25 m thick melamine foam,
which lead to a quasi-anechoic environment for frequencies of
125 Hz and greater.
B. Porous Cylinders
The porous coated cylinders of the present study consist of a bare
inner cylinder with a diameter of d
20 mm, covered by a layer of
flow permeable material. The length of the cylinder models,
L
0.28 m, is determined by the dimension of the wind tunnel
nozzle. To select a value for the thickness of the porous coatings,
and hence the outer diameter D of the cylinders, three different
requirements had to be considered: First, it was intended to obtain
as high a Reynolds number as possible that is close to the value of
1.66 ⋅ 105 used by Lockard et al. at the QFF [4], within the restrictions
of the available facility. Note that the Reynolds number in the current
study is based on the geometric outer diameter D of the porous coated
A
B
C
a) Photograph (Note that measurements were taken wit
the three microphones on the right side of the nozzle only.)
Fig. 1 Setup for the acoustic measurements inside the aeroacoustic wind tunnel.
GEYER
cylinders, neglecting any effect of the porous material on the solid–
fluid boundary. Second, the blockage of the wind tunnel should be as
small as possible. And third, the aspect ratio should at least equal 7, as
that is the value for which periodic Kármán vortex shedding along the
span can be expected [54]. It was finally decided to use 10 mm thick
porous coatings, resulting in an outer cylinder diameter of D

40 mm. This yielded an aspect ratio of L∕D
7 and a wind tunnel
blockage ratio of approximately 0.17 (note that blockage ratios less
than 0.2 are shown to have a negligible impact on the recorded
Strouhal number [55]). The maximum Reynolds number that was
achieved with this diameter was 1.27 ⋅ 105 , which is below the value
of 1.66 ⋅ 105 used by Jenkins et al. [1], Lockard et al. [4], and Liu et al.
[50,51]. However, it is important to note that both Reynolds numbers
belong to the so-called subcritical state of cylinder vortex shedding
[56], which is characterized by the fact that transition appears along
the free shear layers. The maximum Mach number in the present
experiments is 0.14. Also note that in the present study, no trip tape
has been applied to the cylinders, whereas the upstream cylinder was
tripped in the benchmark case [1,2].
Four different porous materials were used in this study, and they
are mainly characterized by their airflow resistivity r. The airflow
resistivity is a parameter that describes the resistivity of a porous
material against the fluid flow attempting to pass through it and is
inversely proportional to the porous material permeability K. The air
flow resistivity of the materials was measured according to ISO 9053
[57]. In addition, the porosity σ of the materials was determined based
on the density of the foams and the density of the respective skeletal
material. The properties of the cylinder models used in the present
study are summarized in Table 1.
In the experiments, the cylinders were arranged in a tandem con-
figuration with a distance of 3.7D
148 mm between the cylinder
axes (see Fig. 1b). Although there are various studies on tandem
cylinder configurations with other distances (see, e.g., [1,10,58), the
chosen configuration is the one focused on in the benchmark [7].
Following the approach in the numerical studies by Liu et al. [50,51],
subsequent experiments were then performed to analyze the effect of
a) a porous coating applied to the upstream cylinder, b) a porous coating
applied to the downstream cylinder, and c) a porous coating applied to
both cylinders. The results are always compared to the baseline case of
two bare cylinders (with the same diameter as the outer diameter D of
the porous coated cylinders) in tandem configuration.
C. Acoustic Measurement Technique
In total, acoustic measurements were performed at seven flow
velocities with corresponding Reynolds numbers ranging from
3.18 ⋅ 104 to 1.27 ⋅ 105 . They were done using three 1/4-inch free-
field measurement microphones of the type MI-17 that possess a
in m
0.76
A 0.44 m B 0.51 m C
microphones
0.4
nozzle
0.115
0
-0.115 side wall
3.7
-0.4
in m
8
.1
14
0
-0
0.
b) Schematic (top view)
 GEYER
Table 1 Properties of the cylinder models used in the present study
Outer diameter,
Name Description D (mm)
Bare Reference 40
Foam 1 Regufoam vibration 150 plus 40
Foam 2 Basotect 40
Panacell
Foam 3 40
90 ppi
Panacell
Foam 4 40
45 ppi
sensitivity of about 50 mV∕Pa and a typical frequency response of
0.5 dB in a frequency range from 20 Hz to 4 kHz. They were
located on one side of the test section, with angles relative to
the tandem cylinder configuration that equal those used in the
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benchmark [1,4], but smaller distances due to the limited space
available. Figure 1b shows a schematic of the acoustic measurement
setup, including the positions of the three microphones (the origin of
the coordinate system is located at the axis of the upstream cylinder).
The spectra obtained with the microphones were corrected in the
present work to represent values obtained at a distance corresponding
to the one used by Lockard et al. [4]. In addition, as the aspect ratio
in the current study (L∕D
7) also differs from that by Lockard
et al. (L∕D
16), an additional correction was included for the
differences in cylinder diameter and cylinder length. These correc-
tions are based on the early work of Phillips [59], which states that for
an observer at a distance R and an angle of 90° to the flow, the mean
square acoustic pressure in the far field
LDU60 Sr2
p2 R ∝ (1)
c2 R2
where U0 is the flow velocity and c is the speed of sound. Based on
this theoretical dependence, the sound pressure level spectra obtained
in the measurements on tandem cylinders in the current study were
corrected to account for the differences in R, L, and D compared to
the measurements by Lockard et al. in the QFF [4]. A similar
correction procedure was also used in a study on the noise generation
by cylinders with different cross sections by Iglesias et al. [60] to
correct for differences in cylinder diameter.
When the sound, which is generated at the cylinders, travels to the
microphones located outside the flow, it has to pass the wind tunnel
shear layers and thereby it gets refracted. This is known to affect both
the direction of travel (the angle between the sound source and the
receivers) and the amplitude of the sound and depends on flow speed,
shear layer shape and thickness, as well as frequency. Different
methods exist to account for this refraction effect. One of the most
commonly used correction models is the model by Amiet [61],
which is based on geometrical acoustics and the assumption of zero-
thickness parallel shear layers of plane or cylindrical shape. Other
methods extend this approach to include, e.g., off-axis sources [62]
or different (convex) shear layer geometries [63,64]. In addition,
other correction schemes are often used, including ray-tracing [65]
or numerical [66,67] approaches. In the present study, however, no
shear layer correction has been applied. This is due to two reasons.
First, the effects of such a correction were found to be very small for
the current setup and the flow velocities considered here. For exam-
ple, the corrected (retarded) angle for microphone B would be 75.4°
compared to the measured angle of 74.3° at the highest flow velocity.
Second, the focus of the current acoustic measurements is the iden-
tification of differences regarding the far-field noise due to a porous
coating compared to a bare cylinder, and a common refraction
correction would reveal identical corrections, both with respect to
the amplitude of the far-field sound pressure and the angle, for both
cases. Thus, it was decided to not perform a shear layer refraction
correction and hence to keep the paper more focused on the
differences in the emitted noise due to a porous coating.
4093
Inner diameter, Length, Airflow resistivity,
d (mm) L (m) r (Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) Porosity, σ
—— 0.28 ∞ 0
20 0.28 64,500 0.85 : : : 0.88
20 0.28 9,800 ≈0.99
20 0.28 4,000 0.96 : : : 0.98
20 0.28 700 0.97 : : : 0.99
The microphone signals were recorded with a sampling frequency
of 51.2 kHz and a duration of 60 s using a National Instruments 24 Bit
multichannel measurement frontend. In postprocessing, the data were
converted to the frequency domain using a fast Fourier transformation
(FFT) with Welch’s method [68], applied to Hanning-windowed
blocks of 65,536 samples with 75% overlap. This results in a relative
error of the spectral estimate of 0.13 [69].
D. Flow Measurement Technique
In addition to the acoustic measurements, constant temperature
anemometry (CTA) measurements were performed at the maximum
Reynolds number of Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 for a subset of the configura-
tions investigated, using a Dantec P11-type single-wire probe with
the wire parallel to the cylinder axis. In this configuration the probe
picks up both the streamwise component (x) of the flow velocity as
well as the component in the direction perpendicular to the flow and
the cylinder axis (the y component). As the latter frequently switches
directions (positive and negative), the resulting time-averaged veloc-
ities have to be interpreted with care. However, it has to be noted that
this alignment of the wire was selected due to the possibility to get as
close to the cylinders as possible while providing access to the probe
holder at the same time.
The probe was positioned using a 3D traverse system made by Isel,
which has a minimum step size of 0.1 mm. In the majority of cases,
the velocity fluctuations were recorded with a sampling frequency of
25.6 kHz and a measurement duration of 8 s per point, while for a few
measurements the duration was increased to 60 s. The data were
recorded using a Dantec multichannel CTA hardware system with a
24-bit National Instruments digital signal acquisition module. Cali-
bration was done against a pitot tube using a fourth-order polynomial
fit, while a 90P10 temperature probe was used for temperature
correction.
In postprocessing, the first second of each data set was omitted to
account for possible vibrations of the probe after each step of the
traverse system. From the remaining samples, the mean velocity U as
well as power spectral densities of the turbulent velocity fluctuations
were calculated. The latter was done using an FFT on Hanning-
windowed blocks of 32,768 samples and an overlap of 50%, leading
to the same frequency resolution as in the acoustic measurements.
III. Results
A. Far-Field Noise
In this section, the results of the acoustic measurements on the
tandem cylinder configuration will be analyzed in order to investigate
the effect of porous cylinder coatings on the noise generation. To
allow for comparison with results from other studies, these analyses
were done using the data recorded by microphone B (see Fig. 1b).
1. Modification of the Upstream Cylinder
In a first step, the effect of a modification of only the upstream
cylinder on the noise generated by the tandem cylinder configuration
is examined. Figure 2 shows the corresponding sound pressure level
spectra for a Reynolds number (based on the outer cylinder diameter
D) of 1.27 ⋅ 105 . The levels were corrected to correspond to the same
distance and aspect ratio as in the study by Lockard et al. [4] using
Eq. (1). It is immediately visible that the different porous coatings
 4094 GEYER

Fig. 2 Sound pressure level spectra obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with only the upstream cylinder
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modified, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 ( bare–bare, foam 1–bare, foam 2–bare, foam 3–bare, foam 4–bare, background noise).

a) b)
Fig. 3 Maximum sound pressure level (a) and Strouhal number (b) of the vortex shedding peak obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with
microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with only the upstream cylinder modified ( bare–bare, foam 1–bare, foam 2–bare, foam 3–bare, foam
4–bare).

affect the tonal peak in a different way. When the upstream cylinder is
coated with the porous material with the highest air flow resistivity
(foam 1 with r
64;500 Pa s∕m2 ), the center frequency of the
tonal peak is close to (but slightly higher than) that of the reference
tandem configuration (bare–bare), with a Strouhal number of 0.166
compared to 0.163 for the reference. However, the width of the peak
is smaller for the case with the porous coated cylinder, which agrees
with previous findings for porous coated single cylinders [47,48].
The maximum sound pressure level for the porous case is higher than
that for the reference case. The remaining porous materials, when
applied to the upstream cylinder, lead to a notable shift of the
tonal peak to lower frequencies. The corresponding peak Strouhal
numbers are 0.124 for foam 2 (r
9800 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) and 0.119 for
foam 3 (r
4000 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) and foam 4 (r
700 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ).
Thus, it is important to note that the effect of the porous coatings is
not a transition of the flow in the shear layers as one would expect
from tripping devices such as tape or wire, as according to experi-
ments by Hutcheson et al. [10] that would lead to an increase of the
Strouhal number, not a decrease. The peak levels are again slightly
increased compared to the bare–bare reference configuration, while
at the same time a notable narrowing of the tonal noise peak can be
observed. In addition, the peaks of some of the configurations with
coated upstream cylinder seem to be skewed compared to the refer-
ence cylinder, which is especially visible for the configuration where
the upstream cylinder is coated with foam 1, but also for foam 3 and
foam 4. Thus, the coatings seem to affect the left side of the peak
(toward lower frequencies) more than the right side of the peak, an
effect that is not fully understood yet.
The physical mechanisms that lead to the noise reduction are
believed to be a viscous damping of turbulent flow pressure amplitudes
in the shear layer by the porous coating of the upstream cylinder.
In addition, the porous coatings allow for a low-velocity flow through
the porous material, which enables a regularization of pressure
differences. As a consequence, porous cylinder coatings were found
to lead to a notable reduction of both the mean velocity and the
turbulence intensity in the wake [48]. Studies on porous airfoils have
also shown that porous materials enforce a slowing down of the eddies
inside the boundary layer over the porous surface and an increased
anisotropy in the flow over the porous surface [44]. However, past
measurements on single cylinders also revealed that the porous coat-
ings do not lead to a reduction of the spanwise coherence [48], which
has been observed for porous airfoils [42,44]. Combined, these mech-
anisms result in a stabilization of the wake from the upstream cylinder,
which is in accordance with the numerical study by Liu et al. [51] and
will be analyzed in more detail in Sec. III.B.
The effect of a porous coating applied to the upstream cylinder on
the sound pressure level and the Strouhal number of the first tone
observed for the tandem cylinder configuration is shown in Fig. 3 as a
function of Reynolds number (based on the outer cylinder diameter).
Thereby, the sound pressure level maxima in Fig. 3a are scaled with the
sixth power of the flow Mach number, assuming a theoretical dipole
behavior of the noise generation [70,71]. This is in agreement with the
velocity dependency utilized in Eq. (1). It has to be noted that past
studies on airfoil self-noise-reduction using porous material [37] have
shown that the porous consistency has an effect on the velocity
dependence, and hence different scalings for the individual coatings
may lead to better results. However, the current approach has been
chosen for the sake of simplicity, as it will at least allow for a better
comparison of the resulting levels. It can be seen that the scaled peak
levels decrease with increasing Reynolds number, revealing that a
smaller exponent for the Mach number may be more fitting. More
interesting, however, is the fact that the three foams with the low to
 GEYER
Fig. 4 Sound pressure level spectra obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with only the downstream cylinder
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modified, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 ( bare–bare, bare–foam 1, bare–foam 2,
medium air flow resistivities† (foam 2 with r
9800 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 , foam
3 with r
4000 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 , and foam 4 with r
700 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) lead
to notable reductions of the peak level at a large range of Reynolds
numbers between approximately 30,000 and 70,000, which are in the
order of 10 dB. At the higher Reynolds numbers of the present study,
the peak levels measured for the porous cases approach that of the
bare–bare configuration, until at the two highest Reynolds numbers
all porous cases yield even higher peak levels than the reference
configuration.
Figure 3b then shows the Strouhal numbers of the tonal peak as a
function of Reynolds number. In general, the Strouhal numbers for all
configurations decrease with increasing Reynolds number. A slight
decrease in Strouhal number would also be expected for single
cylinders in the subcritical flow regime [72]. The most interesting
observation, however, is the fact that the difference between the
Strouhal numbers obtained for the configurations with a porous
coated upstream cylinder and that obtained for the bare–bare refer-
ence configuration also show a dependence on the Reynolds number:
For the porous material with high air flow resistivity (foam 1 with
r
64;500 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) the Strouhal number is close to that of the
reference configuration over the whole range of Reynolds numbers,
whereas the Strouhal numbers obtained for the foams with the lowest
air flow resistivities (foam 3 with r
4000 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 and foam 4
with r
700 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) are notably lower, with a difference in the
order of 0.05 compared to the reference. Now, the Strouhal number
obtained for the configuration with a porous coating with medium air
flow resistivity (foam 2 with r
9800 Pa ⋅ s∕m2 ) is similar to that of
the reference configuration at low to moderate Reynolds numbers up
to approximately 50,000, but then drops to values similar to those
obtained for the configurations with porous materials with low air
flow resistivities. This reveals that in the Reynolds number range
between approximately 50,000 to 65,000 a flow transition exists near
the upstream cylinder coated with foam 2.
2. Modification of the Downstream Cylinder
In a second step, only the downstream cylinder of the tandem
configuration was modified with porous material, while the upstream
cylinder remained bare. The results are shown in Fig. 4, again for the
maximum Reynolds number of 1.27 ⋅ 105 . Here, a very interesting
observation can be made: While most of the porous coatings only
lead to a slight reduction of the frequency of the tonal peak with
similar peak levels compared to the reference configuration, the
results obtained with foam 2 are different. Both the tonal peak level
as well as the broadband noise obtained for this material are notably
reduced compared to the reference. This noise reduction was also
observed at microphones A and C of the present study, so it can be
†
Different from [47], the term “low air flow resistivity” here refers to values
r < 5 kPa ⋅ s∕m2 , “medium” means 5 kPa ⋅ s∕m2 < r < 10 kPa ⋅ s∕m2 , and
“high” means r > 10 kPa ⋅ s∕m2 .
4095
bare–foam 3, bare–foam 4, background noise).
assumed that it is not related to differences in noise directivity.
However, this effect shows a strong dependence on Reynolds num-
ber, as it was only observed for the two highest Reynolds numbers of
the current study.
Based on studies on the effect of porous leading edges on the
reduction of airfoil–turbulence interaction noise [46,73] it can be
assumed that the physical mechanisms responsible for the reduction
of both the tonal noise (through a narrowing of the tonal noise peaks)
and the broadband noise, which is visible in Fig. 4 for the configu-
rations with a porous coated downstream cylinder, are a combination
of the following: an absorption of kinetic energy of the turbulent
eddies by the porous medium, a breaking of larger eddies into smaller
ones when convecting over the porous surface, and a low-velocity
internal flow through the material, leading to the increase of the
boundary layer around the cylinder and a subsequent shift of the
vortices away from the cylinder surface, as well as to an interaction
between the eddies and the small jets emanating from the pores. In
agreement with the numerical study by Liu et al. [51] it is believed
that the first mechanism, which is also known as hydrodynamic
absorption, plays a major role regarding the noise reduction contrib-
uted by a porous coating of the downstream cylinder
Figure 5 then shows the sound pressure levels and Strouhal num-
bers of the first spectral peak obtained for the configurations with a
modified downstream cylinder compared to the bare–bare reference
configuration. Now, Fig. 5a reveals the above-mentioned observation
that the peak level measured for the configuration with foam 2 is
considerably lower than that of the remaining configurations at the
two highest Reynolds numbers only. It should be noted here that
previous experiments with cylinders coated with this material yielded
such inconclusive results as well: In a study with porous coated
cylinders with an outer diameter D
30 mm and inner diameters
d between 10 and 20 mm, leading to coating thicknesses from 5 to
10 mm, this material did not lead to a suppression of the vortex
shedding tone [48]. In a different study on wall-mounted, porous
coated finite cylinders with a much smaller outer diameter of D

18 mm and an inner diameter of d
10 mm, the same material lead
to a complete suppression of the vortex shedding tonal peak [49].
Thus, the effect observed here at the two highest Reynolds numbers
may also be related to the aspect ratio. Further experiments, such as
particle image velocimetry measurements, or numerical simulations
would help to further analyze the cause of the vortex shedding peak
suppression. At the lower Reynolds numbers, all configurations with
a porous coated downstream cylinder lead to peak levels that are
similar to those measured for the reference configuration.
Interestingly, the decrease in peak level for the configuration with
foam 2 does not affect the peak Strouhal number, which is shown in
Fig. 5b, as all configurations with a porous coated downstream
cylinder lead to Strouhal numbers only slightly below that of the
reference configuration. Thus, the overall effect of a porous coating
applied to the downstream cylinder on the overall noise is much
smaller than the effect of a porous coating on the upstream cylinder.
 4096
a)
Fig. 5 Maximum sound pressure level (a) and Strouhal number (b) of the vortex shedding peak obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with
microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with only the downstream cylinder modified ( bare–bare,
bare–foam 4).
Downloaded by INDIAN INST OF TECHN. BOMBAY on September 12, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/1.J061180
This agrees well with the findings from Liu et al. [51], who state that
the effect of a coating of the downstream cylinder (an absorption of
impingement energy and a stabilization of the downstream wake) is
considerably smaller than the stabilizing wake effect of a coating of
the upstream cylinder.
3. Modification of Both Cylinders
Finally, the effect of a modification of both cylinders with porous
material on the far-field noise was investigated. The resulting sound
pressure level spectra are shown in Fig. 6 for a Reynolds number of
1.27 ⋅ 105 for all porous coatings except foam 1, which was not used
because the overall performance of cylinders coated with this par-
ticular material is very similar to the bare reference cylinder. Basi-
cally, it can be seen that all porous materials again lead to a notable
shift of the tonal peak to lower frequencies. This shift is slightly larger
for foam 2 and foam 3, for which the Strouhal number is 0.132, than
for foam 4, for which it is 0.140, compared to the value of 0.162 for
the bare–bare reference configuration. The peak level also decreases
for all porous coatings compared to the reference configuration. Now,
the physical mechanisms responsible for this noise reduction are a
combination of those that affect the upstream cylinder (and, sub-
sequently, the wake of the upstream cylinder) and those that affect the
downstream cylinder.
The effect of a modification of both the upstream and the down-
stream cylinder with the same porous material on the level and the
Strouhal number of the first tonal peak is shown in Fig. 7. It can be
seen that all the porous coatings, when applied to both the upstream
and the downstream cylinder, lead to a reduction of the tonal peak
between roughly 10 dB at low Reynolds numbers to about 5 dB at
high Reynolds numbers. Thus, the impact of a porous coating on
both cylinders is even more effective at reducing the tonal peak than
Fig. 6 Sound pressure level spectra obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with both the upstream and the
downstream cylinder modified, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 ( bare–bare,
ground noise).
GEYER
b)
bare–foam 1, bare–foam 2, bare–foam 3,
a modification of only the upstream cylinder (see Fig. 3a), for
which the level differences, although notable, were still below
those observed in Fig. 7a. Again, this agrees well with the findings
from Liu et al. [51].
The resulting Strouhal numbers are shown in Fig. 7b as a function
of Reynolds number. Basically, the results are similar to those
observed for the configurations where only the upstream cylinder
was modified (see Fig. 3b for comparison): The porous coated
cylinders all result in peak Strouhal numbers notably below that of
the reference configuration over the whole range of Reynolds num-
bers (although it should be noted that foam 4 yields slightly higher
Strouhal numbers than foam 3 in the present case, and the opposite
was true for the modification of only the upstream cylinder). This
confirms that the effect of the coating of the downstream cylinder,
which is mainly the absorption of turbulent kinetic energy from the
inflow and a stabilization of the wake of the downstream cylinder, is
much smaller than the stabilizing effect of a porous coating of the
upstream cylinder on the flow between the cylinders.
B. Flow Measurement Results
To provide insight into the phenomena leading to the observed
shift of the vortex shedding peak of the tandem cylinder configuration
due to the porous coatings, results from flow measurements with both
cylinders in place will be analyzed. This will mostly be done for the
configurations where only the upstream cylinder is modified, as these
cases were found to show a noticeable shift of the vortex shedding
peak to lower frequencies. Additional results of flow measurements
in the wake of the single cylinders can be found in [74].
Figure 8 presents mean velocities measured along a streamwise
line at y
0 between the two cylinders. As described in Sec. II.D, the
measured velocity contains both the streamwise (x) component as
foam 2–foam 2, foam 3–foam 3, foam 4–foam 4, back-
 GEYER
a) b)
Fig. 7 Maximum sound pressure level (a) and Strouhal number (b) of the vortex shedding peak obtained for the tandem cylinder configurations with
microphone B (see Fig. 1b) with both the upstream and the downstream cylinder modified ( bare–bare,
foam 4–foam 4).
Downloaded by INDIAN INST OF TECHN. BOMBAY on September 12, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/1.J061180
Fig. 8 Mean velocities measured along a streamwise line at y
0 between the tandem cylinders with only the upstream cylinder modified, at
Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 , upstream cylinder located at x∕D
0, downstream cylinder at x∕D
3.7 ( bare–bare,
foam 3–bare, foam 4–bare).
well as the lateral (y) component of the velocity field. It is visible that
there are basically two groups of curves: The first one contains the
result observed for the bare–bare reference configuration and the
configuration where the upstream cylinder is coated with foam 1,
the material with the highest air flow resistivity of the current study.
For these cases, the mean velocity rapidly increases from about 0.3U0
directly downstream of the upstream cylinder (at x∕D ≈ 0.5) to the
maximum value of 0.6 at x∕D ≈ 1.3. Then, the value slightly
decreases to U∕U0 ≈ 0.55 at the measurement location closest to
the downstream cylinder. The curves obtained for the second group,
which contains the configurations where the upstream cylinder is
coated with porous materials of low and medium air flow resistivity,
are notably different, with some differences for the individual porous
coatings. The mean velocity steadily increases from a very low value
of approximately 0.03U0 until it reaches a plateau of U∕U0 ≈ 0.45 to
0.5 for foams 2 and 3 and U∕U0 ≈ 0.38 for foam 4. Then the mean
velocity increases again to a value of approximately 0.62U0 for
foams 2 and 3 and 0.5U0 for foam 4 just upstream of the downstream
bare cylinder. This shows that the effect of a porous coating of the
upstream cylinder with a material with low and medium air flow
resistivity leads to a much stronger wake deficit in a large region
downstream of the cylinder. However, in close proximity to the surface
of the downstream cylinder the mean velocities at y
0 are very
similar and virtually independent of the porous coating. Thus, the
spectral content of the turbulent flow has to be an important contributor
to the observed shift of the peak of the far-field noise as well.
The effect of a porous coating of only the downstream cylinder and
of both cylinders on the mean velocity between the tandem cylinders
will be exemplarily analyzed using only foam 4 (which has the lowest
air flow resistivity of the current study) as porous material. The results
are shown in Fig. 9. Basically, it is visible that when the upstream
4097
foam 2–foam 2, foam 3–foam 3,
foam 1–bare, foam 2–bare,
cylinder is bare (bare–foam 4), the resulting curve is very similar to
the one measured for the reference tandem configuration consisting
of two bare cylinders. The main difference is that the decrease of the
mean velocity between x∕D
1.3 and x∕D ≈ 3.2 is stronger for the
configuration with the porous coated downstream cylinder. When
both cylinders are coated with foam 4, the general slope of the curve is
closer to that observed when just the upstream cylinder is coated, as it
steadily increases with x∕D. However, the mean velocities are much
lower for this configuration, as it increases from about 0.03U0 at
x∕D ≈ 0.5 to 0.15U0 at x∕D ≈ 3.2. Overall, the results confirm that
the mean velocity between the tandem cylinders is governed by the
upstream cylinder. When it is bare, the curve resembles that of the
bare–bare reference configuration, nearly independent from a poten-
tial coating of the downstream cylinder. When the upstream cylinder
is coated, the mean velocity is decreased over a large part of the wake.
This agrees with the general trend observed for the porous coated
single cylinders, as reported in [48]. It is also in qualitative agreement
with plots of the instantaneous vorticity field for porous coated
upstream cylinders compared to bare upstream cylinders provided
by Liu et al. [51].
The results shown in Figs. 8 and 9 again confirm that a porous
coating applied to the upstream cylinder has a strong effect on the
flowfield. The resulting reduction of the mean velocity can be
assumed to be an important reason for the observed shift of the vortex
shedding peak to lower frequencies. However, the fact that the addi-
tional modification of the downstream cylinder (foam 4–foam 4 in
Fig. 9) leads to a very strong decrease of the mean velocity, but only a
much smaller change of the peak Strouhal number (compare Fig. 2
and Fig. 6) is evidence that the reduced mean velocity is not the only
cause of the observed shift of the peak Strouhal number. Thus, the
spectral content of the turbulent flow between the two cylinders needs
 4098
Fig. 9 Mean velocities measured along a streamwise line at y
0 between tandem cylinder configurations modified with foam 4, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 ,
Downloaded by INDIAN INST OF TECHN. BOMBAY on September 12, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/1.J061180
upstream cylinder located at x∕D
0, downstream cylinder at x∕D
3.7 (
to be analyzed as well. In addition, it is quite possible that porous
coatings also behave quite unique with respect to the vortex shedding
tonal noise when subjected to a turbulent inflow, which is the case for
the configurations with a porous coated downstream cylinder. This
needs to be investigated in future studies. The fact that the porous
coated cylinders have a less distinct solid–fluid interface than a bare
cylinder, which effectively leads to an effective diameter smaller than
the geometrical diameter, may also affect the vortex shedding in
these cases.
To investigate the spectral content of the flowfield between the two
cylinders, corresponding spectra of the velocity fluctuations mea-
sured along a streamwise line at y
0 between both cylinders will
additionally be analyzed. They are shown in Fig. 10 as a function of
streamwise distance x∕D and Strouhal number Sr based on outer
cylinder diameter. For the bare–bare reference configuration, this plot
reveals two peaks: the first, much weaker peak appears around Sr

0.17 and the second, stronger peak appears at twice this Strouhal
number. In agreement with theory [70] it can be concluded that the
first peak is caused by the fluctuating lift force acting on the cylinder
and the second by the fluctuating drag force. Comparing this result
with results for the single bare cylinders in [74] reveals some inter-
esting differences, which can be attributed to the presence of the
downstream cylinder: In the single-cylinder configuration, all cylin-
ders generate a much stronger first peak and a much weaker second
peak. For the bare–bare tandem cylinder configuration, the second
peak at Sr ≈ 0.35 is much stronger than the first, revealing that the
addition of the downstream cylinder seems to weaken lift fluctuations
and/or to promote drag fluctuations. For the configuration where the
upstream cylinder is coated with the porous material with the highest
air flow resistivity (foam 1), the result is similar to the bare–bare
reference case, although the first peak is barely visible and the second
peak is much sharper. The results for the configurations where the
upstream cylinder is coated with a porous material of low to medium
air flow resistivity (foams 2–4), the results look much different
Fig. 10 Power spectral densities of the velocity fluctuations measured along a streamwise line at y
0 between the tandem cylinders with only the
upstream cylinder modified, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 (normalized with Φ0
1 m2 s−1 , x∕D
0 corresponds to the axis of the upstream cylinder and x∕D
3.7
to the axis of the downstream cylinder).
GEYER
bare–bare, foam 4–bare, bare–foam 4, foam 4–foam 4).
compared to the bare–bare reference configuration. Over a large
part of the streamwise distance between the two cylinders in the
region starting immediately downstream of the upstream cylinder
(x∕D
0.5), no distinct tonal peaks are visible. This changes when
the probe approaches the downstream cylinder around x∕D
0.25,
where again two peaks can be seen. However, these peaks now appear
at lower Strouhal numbers of approximately 0.125 and 0.25, which
agrees well with the Strouhal numbers obtained from the correspond-
ing acoustic measurements as shown in Fig. 2. As for the bare–bare
reference configuration, the second peak at Sr ≈ 0.25 is much more
pronounced. Thus, the analysis of these spectra reveals that a coating
of the upstream cylinder with a porous material with low air flow
resistivity weakens velocity fluctuation peaks in a large region down-
stream of the upstream cylinder, while essentially the same shift of the
tonal peaks to lower Strouhal numbers compared to the bare–bare
configuration as in the acoustic spectra can be seen in close proximity
to the downstream bare cylinder. In addition, the fact that the char-
acteristic tandem cylinder spectral signature is especially distinct
very close to the downstream cylinder indicates that the downstream
cylinder is the dominant location of the tonal noise source. This has
also been stated in prior tandem cylinder studies (see, e.g., [1,4).
In a next step, turbulence spectra will be analyzed that were not
measured at y∕D
0, but off-axis at y∕D
−0.5 between the two
cylinders. These measurements were not taken along a streamwise
line, but only at four selected locations (given are the x and y
coordinates normalized with the outer diameter D, respectively):
P1
0.5; −0.5, P2
1.5; −0.5, P3
2.5; −0.5, and P4

3.0; −0.5, with the axis of the upstream cylinder being located at
(0.0, 0.0) and that of the downstream cylinder at (3.7, 0.0). For these
measurements, which again were only performed for configurations
with a porous coated upstream cylinder, the measurement duration
was increased to 60 s. Figure 11 shows the resulting velocity spectra
as a function of Strouhal number. Basically, the results confirm the
findings from the measurements at y
0. The spectra obtained for

a) b)
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Fig. 11 Power spectral densities of the velocity fluctuations measured at various positions in the shear layer of the upstream cylinder with both cylinders
in place, but only the upstream cylinder modified, at Re
1.27 ⋅ 105 (
4–bare, normalized with Φ0
1 m2 s−1 : a) P 1
0.5D; − 0.5D, b) P 2
1.5D; − 0.5D, c) P 3
2.5D; − 0.5D, and d) P 4
3.0D; − 0.5D).
the bare–bare reference configuration and for the foam 1–bare con-
figuration are similar in level, referring to both the broadband level
and the level of the two peaks at Strouhal numbers of approximately
0.17 and 0.35 due to the fluctuating lift force and drag force, respec-
tively. With decreasing distance to the downstream cylinder (from
Figs. 11a–11d), the level of the first peak decreases for the reference
configuration, which is especially visible at the point closest to
the downstream cylinder. For the remaining configurations (foam
2–bare, foam 3–bare, and foam 4–bare), the broadband level
increases notably from the location closest to the upstream cylinder
at (x
0.5D, y
−0.5D) (Fig. 11a) to the location closest to the
downstream cylinder at (x
3.0D, y
−0.5D) (Fig. 11d). This is
consistent with the trend observed in Fig. 8. The vortex shedding
peaks are barely visible at the first two locations, but increase with
decreasing distance from the downstream cylinder. Consistent with
the acoustic results and the velocity spectra obtained at y
0, how-
ever, the peaks can again be observed at notably lower Strouhal
numbers of approximately 0.125 (due to lift fluctuations) and 0.25
(due to drag fluctuations). Both the measurements at y
0 (Fig. 10)
as well as the off-axis measurements (Fig. 11) show that the observed
shift of the Strouhal number due to a porous coating, although it is
less distinct in close proximity to the upstream cylinder, is not a
transitional effect that takes place between the two cylinders, but it
rather affects the whole flowfield around both cylinders.
IV. Conclusions
The aerodynamic noise generated by a so-called tandem cylinder
configuration in a flow, which serves as a simplified model for
components of the landing gear of airplanes, is a classical problem
in aeroacoustics. Since the use of porous coatings to reduce the
aerodynamic noise from single cylinders in a crossflow has been
shown to be very effective, the use of porous materials applied to a
tandem cylinder configuration seems an obvious extension of that
approach. However, the only investigations on the effect of porous
coatings on the noise generated by such a tandem cylinder configu-
ration so far are the detailed numerical studies by Liu et al. [50,51]. To
the knowledge of the authors, the current work represents the first
experimental study in which porous materials are applied to circular
cylinders in a tandem configuration.
The porous coated cylinders in the present study consist of a
nonporous inner cylinder with a diameter of 20 mm, which is covered
by a 10 mm thick porous layer, resulting in an outer diameter D of
40 mm. Four porous materials were used, which are characterized by
their air flow resistivity and their porosity. In addition, a configuration
using two bare cylinders served as a reference. The tandem cylinder
configuration contains two cylinders with a streamwise spacing of
3.7D, thus reproducing a well-known benchmark case [4]. Acoustic
measurements were performed using single microphones located in
GEYER 4099
c) d)
bare–bare, foam 1–bare, foam 2–bare, foam 3–bare, foam
the acoustic far-field. Additional hot-wire measurements were per-
formed between the two cylinders in an attempt to help understanding
the effect of the porous coating on the flowfield.
Depending on which of the two cylinders is modified, it was found
that the porous coatings lead to differences in the amplitude and the
width of the tonal peak and even more notable differences in the
corresponding peak frequency. In agreement with the numerical
results from Liu et al. [51] it was observed that a modification of
the upstream cylinder has a much stronger effect on the tonal noise
generation than a modification of the downstream cylinder. When the
upstream cylinder is coated with a porous material with low to
medium air flow resistivity, a notable shift of the tonal peak to lower
frequencies can be observed. This effect is not caused by a tripping of
the shear layer to turbulence due to the increased surface roughness of
the porous coating compared to the bare cylinder, since this would
lead to a shift of the peak to higher frequencies. The shift depends on
both the properties of the porous materials as well as on the Reynolds
number. If only the downstream cylinder is modified, the shift is very
small. A modification of both cylinders even increases the trend
observed for the case of a modified upstream cylinder, as the shift
is even more pronounced.
The analysis of the mean velocity and power spectral density of the
velocity fluctuations between the cylinders revealed the complex
nature of the flowfield and showed notable differences between the
bare–bare reference configuration and the configurations for which
the upstream cylinder was coated with a porous material with low to
medium air flow resistivity. The reference configuration only shows a
relatively short wake of the upstream cylinder, and hence a high mean
velocity over a large region between the two cylinders. The broad-
band level of the velocity fluctuations measured between the two bare
cylinders is consistently high. The configurations with an upstream
cylinder modified with a material with low to medium air flow
resistivity show a strongly reduced mean velocity over a large part
of the wake from the upstream cylinder with a very low broadband
level of the corresponding velocity fluctuation spectra. Both the
broadband level and the tonal level increase strongly with decreasing
distance from the downstream cylinder. Interestingly, the shift of the
frequency of the spectral peak due to lift fluctuations can already be
seen for the cases with porous coated upstream cylinders at locations
very close to the upstream cylinder, even if the peaks are very weak
only. Thus, the shift of the spectral peak is no transitional phenome-
non, but is visible at all locations between the cylinders. The notable
increase of the peak levels when the probe approaches the down-
stream cylinder leads to the conclusion that the spatial location of the
tonal noise sources is the downstream cylinder.
Regarding the noise reducing effect of the porous coatings, the
present study confirmed the findings from the numerical investiga-
tions by Liu et al. [50,51]. A coating of the upstream cylinder has the
highest impact, which is due to the stabilizing effect of the porous
 4100
material on the wake and the notable reduction of the mean velocity
downstream of the upstream cylinder. This agrees well with previous
investigations of the flowfield in the wake of single cylinders [48].
The second mechanism is the absorption of turbulent kinetic energy
by the porous coating of the downstream cylinder. This has also been
observed in studies on the reduction of turbulence interaction noise
through airfoils with porous leading edges [45,46,73]. A third cause
for the reduction of both the tonal noise and the broadband noise is the
stabilizing effect that the porous coating of the downstream cylinder
has on the flow in the wake. All these effects have been found in
previous studies to be more pronounced for porous materials with low
airflow resistivity and high porosity (see, e.g., [40,48,73). This is
because, for typical open porous materials such as foams, a low
airflow resistivity and a high porosity are consistent with large pores,
which will be able to absorb larger and more turbulent structures than
materials with smaller pores and, on average, more fluid will be able
to enter the material. Hence, in the current study, materials with low
Downloaded by INDIAN INST OF TECHN. BOMBAY on September 12, 2022 | http://arc.aiaa.org | DOI: 10.2514/1.J061180
airflow resistivity and high porosity were also found to be more
effective.
Regarding the observed shift of the vortex shedding peak toward
lower frequencies by the porous coatings, several mechanisms can be
identified. The first is the reduced mean velocity in the wake of the
upstream cylinder when that cylinder is coated with a material with
low to medium air flow resistivity. Another possible reason is that the
porous coating of the downstream cylinder also leads to a shift of
the vortex shedding peak when the inflow is turbulent (as it is due to
the presence of the upstream cylinder). This can be assumed to again
be caused by the absorption of turbulence within the porous coating
as well as by the penetration of the porous coating with fluid. The
effect of a turbulent inflow on the tonal noise generation by porous
coated single cylinders needs to be analyzed in future measurements
in order to provide more details on this phenomenon. Finally, the
virtual reduction of the diameter of the downstream porous coated
cylinder due to fluid entering the porous material may also play a role
regarding the observed shift of the vortex shedding peak.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Baran Calisci (Technical Acoustics Group,
Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Cott-
bus, Germany) for his help with the acoustic measurements, and Elias
Arcondoulis and Yu Liu (Department of Mechanics and Aerospace
Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology,
Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China) for the helpful discussions.
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