Airfoil–Vortex Interaction Noise Control Mechanism

Based on Active Flap Control

Zhiyuan Hu 1; Guohua Xu 2; Yongjie Shi 3; and Runze Xia 4

Abstract: Blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise is a significant source of rotor noise. In recent years, active flap control (AFC) has been used
successfully to control BVI by adding a trailing edge flap to the blade. However, due to the rotor’s complex shape and motion in AFC, the
accurate simulation of the motion and unsteady flow field is challenging. Therefore, studies of noise control by AFC have mostly focused on
experimental methods. Few numerical simulations were conducted on the noise reduction mechanism. In order to understand the noise
reduction mechanism of the AFC clearly, this paper establishes a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method based on an overset grid
and tries to simulate the AFC airfoil flow field with the artificial vortex interaction. The noise characteristics are obtained from an acoustic
analogy method based on the Farassat 1A (F1A) equation. By parameter analysis study and by testing the airfoil load and vertical interference
distance, the results show that the proposed active control method exactly reduces the airfoil-vortex interaction noise. A maximum noise
reduction of 1.56 dB is observed, and the most critical control parameter is the deflection phase of the trailing edge. When the vortex core
passes over the airfoil, the load fluctuation and the interaction noise can be reduced by an upward deflection of the trailing edge. The flapping
of the trailing edge significantly changes the vortex core’s path, which can further control the downstream airfoil-vortex interaction and
achieve noise reduction. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0001356. © 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Airfoil-vortex interaction noise; Active flap control (AFC); Computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Overset grid method;
Acoustic analogy.

Introduction
Helicopters produce significant noise; thus, noise reduction has
become an essential goal in helicopter design. The blade-vortex
interaction (BVI) noise caused by the interaction of the rotor blade
vortices is particularly prominent. This type of noise typically oc-
curs when the helicopter is descending (such as landing), and the
tip vortices are absorbed by the rotor disk, causing strong load fluc-
tuations and loud BVI noise (Oh et al. 2002; Yu 2000).
Boxwell and Schmitz (1980) measured BVI noise during flight to
understand this phenomenon. The National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), The German Aerospace Center (DLR), and
the French Aerospace Research Center (ONERA) conducted opera-
tional load surveys (OLSs), obtaining detailed measurements in the
German-Dutch wind tunnel (DNW) (Shockey et al. 1977; Yu et al.
1995). Research on the airfoil-vortex interaction has also been
1 hotspot due to its simple control mechanism and good vibration and
Ph.D. Candidate, College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing Univ.
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, People’s Republic of
China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7567-2045. Email: huzhiyuan@
nuaa.edu.cn
2
Professor, College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing Univ. of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, People’s Republic of China
(corresponding author). Email: ghxu@nuaa.edu.cn
3
Professor, College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing Univ. of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, People’s Republic of
China. Email: shiyongjie@nuaa.edu.cn
4
Ph.D. Candidate, College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing Univ. of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, People’s Republic of
China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7656-6594. Email: xxrz2015@
nuaa.edu.cn
Note. This manuscript was submitted on February 9, 2021; approved
on July 26, 2021; published online on September 23, 2021. Discussion
period open until February 23, 2022; separate discussions must be sub-
mitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Aero-
space Engineering, © ASCE, ISSN 0893-1321.
performed. For example, it was confirmed that the rotor’s BVI at
subsonic speed was equivalent to the two-dimensional airfoil-vortex
interaction (Srinivasan et al. 1986, 1984; Srinivasan 1985). Damo-
daran and Caughey (1987) verified the Euler method’s feasibility to
calculate the unsteady flow field of an airfoil-vortex interaction. Oh
et al. (2002) used adaptive unstructured meshes to simulate the
airfoil-vortex interaction. Similar airfoil-vortex interaction noise
problems, such as the rod-vortex interaction (Jacob et al. 2005), were
investigated.
Various blade shapes have been analyzed to reduce BVI noise
(Yu et al. 1995), and several types of active control methods were
developed (Yu et al. 1997), such as higher harmonic control (HHC)
(Brooks et al. 1994; Kobiki et al. 2009), individual blade control
(IBC) (Norman et al. 2009), active torsion (Chen et al. 2001), active
leading edge (Lee 1994), and active Gurney flap (Padthe et al.
2011). The active flap control (AFC) [also known as active control
flap (ACF) and active trailing edge (ATE)] has become a research
noise reduction performance. A schematic diagram of the AFC is
shown in Fig. 1. The Smart Material-Actuated Rotor Technology
(SMART), a research project conducted by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), NASA, and Boeing, has fully
verified the noise reduction potential of the MD900 rotor equipped
with AFC (Straub et al. 2009, 2004). JanakiRam et al. (2009) tested
a full-scale AFC rotor and observed a 2–7 dB noise reduction.
Moreover, Simonich et al. (1993) showed that AFC reduced the
load fluctuation and noise of an airfoil in gusts.
However, if the control parameters or techniques are not ap-
propriate, AFC can increase BVI noise (Aoyama et al. 2005;
Srinivasan et al. 1984). There are currently no methods for predict-
ing the suitable control parameter values to achieve noise reduction,
and experiments or simulations are used to obtain the data. More-
over, due to the AFC rotor’s complex shape and motion, it is chal-
lenging to obtain an accurate simulation of the unsteady flow field.

© ASCE 04021111-1 J. Aerosp. Eng.

 Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of noise reduction control by AFC.

Therefore, there are few detailed studies on the noise reduction
principle of AFC and few observational data on the airfoil-vortex
interaction of AFC.
In view of the preceding difficulties and shortcomings, this
paper intends to find a breakthrough from the two-dimensional
airfoil-vortex interaction phenomenon. Although the research
on airfoil-vortex interaction is not rare, a literature survey shows
that airfoil-vortex interaction for the AFC has not been carried out.
The reverse overset assembly technique (ROAT) and the unsteady
Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) algorithm previously
established by the authors (Hu et al. 2020) have solved the prob-
lems of moving overset mesh assembly and guaranteed the accu-
racy of the AFC flow field simulation. In this study, the artificial
vortex is added to the original URANS solver first. Then, the air-
foil’s aerodynamic and noise characteristics are obtained using the
acoustic analogy method based on the Farassat 1A (F1A) equation
after adding an artificial vortex. Finally, the control law of reducing
the airfoil-vortex interaction noise is obtained from the flow field
results and noise characteristics for different active control param-
eters. This paper is organized as follows. In “Numerical Simulation
Method,” the numerical simulation method and verification are de-
scribed. “The Process and Performance of Active Control” presents
the AFC for controlling the noise in detail and compares the flow
field and noise characteristics with and without AFC control. In
“Effects of the Active Control Parameters,” the primary factors,
control laws, and the noise reduction performance of the proposed
method for different control parameters are discussed and summa-
rized. The final section concludes the paper.
Numerical Simulation Method
Overset Grid Method
The grid of the airfoil with AFC was obtained using the ROAT
proposed in the authors’ previous study (Hu et al. 2020). The AFC
airfoil grid is obtained from the overset assembled main airfoil grid
and trailing edge grid. This makes the trailing edge grid with a rigid
motion only and ensures the high-quality mesh during the motion
for no cell deformation. Fig. 2 shows a flowchart of the overset
method. In the first step, the donor cells are searched, and the query
cell is compared with the donor cell to determine the preclassifi-
cation type. The second step is selecting some cells as overset
interpolation cells from the preclassification cell set according to
the user’s settings. In the third step, the final overset assembly re-
sults are obtained by combining the donor search information and

Step1 Step2 Step3

Cell Pre-Classification Boundary identification Generate

select overset results
act_outside from
by competion
Normal cells
act_win export
Cell type
Boundary cells
inact_lose (from act_win/inact_lose only) information
Donor Disabled cells
inact_inside boundary
search info

Interpolation
Donor cell information information
obtain
(cell index/block type) (boundary cell&
donor cell)

Fig. 2. The flowchart of the overset assembly method.

© ASCE 04021111-2 J. Aerosp. Eng.

the interpolation information. This method can be applied to the Therefore, the artificial vortex can be added by the additional
overset assembly if multibody interference, contact, or narrow gaps velocity field induced by the vortex. Moreover, a more detailed
occur. Thus, it is suitable for the overset assemble between the main description and verification can be found in the authors’ previous
airfoil and the trailing edge flap (TEF). studies (Shi et al. 2010, 2011).

CFD Simulation Noise Prediction Method

Due to its computational accuracy and efficiency, the computa- The acoustic analogy method based on the Ffowcs Williams and
tional fluid dynamics (CFD) method based on the URANS Hawking (FW-H) equation is adopted to obtain the noise of the
Eq. (1), which is commonly used in the rotor flow field simulation, airfoil with AFC, and the corresponding solve code is also included
is adopted in the RADAS. The F1A equation (Farassa 2007; Farassat and
Z Z Succi 1980), suitable for a permeable surface, is adopted in this
∂
V þ ½FðWÞ − GðWÞdS ¼ 0 ð1Þ work. It is defined in Eq. (6), where pT0 ðx; tÞ and pL0 ðx; tÞ are the
∂t V S
thickness noise and load noise, respectively, which satisfy Eqs. (7)
where W ¼ ½ρ; ρu; ρv; ρw; ρET is the vector of the conserved var- and (8)
iables; ρ = density; denote u ¼ ½u; v; wT is the grid cell’s velocity;
p 0 ðx; tÞ ¼ pT0 ðx; tÞ þ pL0 ðx; tÞ ð6Þ
E = internal energy; and FðWÞ and GðWÞ = inviscid flux and the
viscous flux, respectively. The results are calculated by the in-house Z  
ρ0 v̇n ρ v r^ Ṁ
solver RADAS (Rotorcraft Aerodynamics and Aeroacoustics 4πpT0 ðx; tÞ ¼ 2
þ 0 n i i3 dS
Solver). For the case in this study, the ROE-MUSCL [Roe’s upwind f¼0 rð1 − M r Þ rð1 − Mr Þ ret
flux-difference splitting scheme and Van Leer’s MUSCL (mono- Z  2

ρ0 cvn ðM r − M Þ
tone upstream-centered schemes for conservation laws) approach] þ dS ð7Þ
f¼0 r2 ð1 − M r Þ3 ret
spatial discretization scheme was chosen to obtain a good shock
resolution. The implicit lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel (LU- Z  
SGS) temporal discretization was selected to accelerate the con- ṗ0 cos θ r^ i Ṁ i p cos θ
4πpL0 ðx; tÞ ¼ 2
þ dS
vergence step. The widely-used Spalart-Allmaras (S-A) turbulence f¼0 crð1 − M r Þ crð1 − M r Þ3 ret
model was implemented. The dual time-stepping scheme was used Z  
pðcos θ − Mi ni Þ ðM r − M 2 Þp cos θ
for the unsteady case. Strawn et al. (1998) used the same simulation þ þ dS
f¼0 r2 ð1 − M r Þ2 r2 ð1 − M r Þ3 ret
strategy for similar rotor noise prediction cases and verified its
performance. However, it should be noted that the setup profile ð8Þ
differed from the simulation of typical dynamic stall cases. More
than 1,000 time-steps per cycle should be used to capture the where ρ0 and c = air density and sound speed when it is without
load fluctuation and meet the needs of noise prediction (Shen disturbance; vn = local normal velocity of the sound source surface;
et al. 2009). r = distance between the sound source and the noise observation
point; Mr ¼ r^ i vi =c is the propagation direction Mach number of
the point i on the moving coordinate system η at the sound source
Addition of the Artificial Vortex time τ ; the relationship between the sound source time τ and
The solver for the simulation with a moving mesh and the addi- the real observation time t satisfies the equation, ð∂τ =∂tÞη ¼ ð1=
tion of the artificial vortex was written based on the arbitrary 1 − M r Þ; θ = angle between the normal sound source surface and
Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) equation (Hirt et al. 1974). For the the propagation vector in the sound source propagation space;
mesh cells with motion, Eqs. (2)–(4) provide the conservation and cos θ ¼ ni r^ i .
equation when the body force (such as gravity) is ignored The instantaneous sound pressure can be obtained by adding
Z Z the thickness noise and load noise together according to Eq. (6).
d Then, the effective sound pressure pe ðxÞ can be calculated accord-
ρdV − ρðU − uÞ · ndS ¼ 0 ð2Þ
dt V S ing to Eq. (9)
Z Z Z sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Z
d 1 T 2
ρuV − ρuðU − uÞ · ndS þ ∇pdV ¼ 0 ð3Þ pe ðxÞ ¼ p ðx; tÞdt ð9Þ
dt V S V T 0
Z Z Z
d
ρEdV − ρEðU − uÞ · ndS þ pu · ndS ¼ 0 ð4Þ And the total sound pressure level (SPL) can be calculated
dt V S S according to the following equation
where p = pressure; n = normal vector of the mesh surface; and
p2e
U = mesh surface velocity, which accounts for the additional flux SPL ¼ 10 log ð10Þ
of the conserved variables when moving. p2ref
In this way, adding the motion of a specific velocity field to the
flow can be converted into the grid surface’s additional flux. where pref ¼ 2 × 10−5 Pa is the audible valve sound pressure of
The additional velocity field from a given vortex is defined as humans.
follows It should be noted that the quadrupole noise term in the FW-H
  equation is ignored in Eq. (6). However, the case in this paper only
Γ r2 involved subsonic speed; thus, the equation is applicable, and the
UΓ ¼ ð5Þ
2πr r2 þ a2 sound source only needs to be obtained from the solid wall surface.
For the two-dimensional noise calculation involved in this paper,
where Γ = vortex vorticity; a = radius of the vortex; and r = the sound source force is considered to be obtained from the wing
distance between the grid cell’s center and the vortex’s core. with a 1 m span. Besides, the source time noise prediction method

© ASCE 04021111-3 J. Aerosp. Eng.

 (Brentner 1997) was used to improve the calculation efficiency in
this study.

The Verification of the Aerodynamic Parameter and

Noise Prediction
Fig. 3 presents the results of the AFC airfoil under steady condi-
tions with the angle of attack ðAoAÞ ¼ −4.03° and Ma ¼ 0.758.
In this figure, the presented Fluent software’s simulation result is
obtained by using a single block grid, while reference calcula-
tion data (Jose and Baeder 2009) and presented results from the
RADAS solver are generated by the overset grid. Fig. 4 shows the
dynamic lift coefficient and normal force coefficient difference of
the NACA0012 between the simulation and the experimental data
(Oh et al. 2002; Landon 1982). Among them, Fig 5 is the instanta-
neous pressure distribution of the case in Fig. 4(b) when the AoA
are 1.09° up and 0.52° down, respectively. It is evident that the
present overset grid simulation method was accurate for simulating
Fig. 3. The surface pressure coefficient of the HH-06 airfoil with AFC.
the airfoil with AFC.

Fig. 4. The verification of dynamic characteristics of the NACA0012 airfoil: (a) Ma ¼ 0.6, k ¼ 0.081, and Re ¼ 4.8e6; and (b) Ma ¼ 0.755,
k ¼ 0.0814, and Re ¼ 5.5 e6.

Fig. 5. The verification of dynamic characteristics of the NACA0012 airfoil: (a) AoA ¼ 1.09° up; and (b) AoA ¼ 0.52° down.

© ASCE 04021111-4 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 6. The verification of NACA0012 airfoil with adding artificial vortex: (a) lift coefficient; (b) instantaneous pressure, Xv ¼ 0.0; and
(c) instantaneous pressure, Xv ¼ 1.0.
Fig. 6 is the validation of the NACA0012 airfoil with adding an
artificial vortex (Oh et al. 2002; Srinivasan et al. 1986). In this
case, Ma ¼ 0.8, AOA ¼ 0°, and Re = 6.0 × 106. In this study,
a free artificial vortex is added at 5 chords from the leading edge
and 0.26 chord below the chord line, and the vorticity magnitude is
Γ ¼ 0.2 (clockwise) with the vortex core radius. Fig. 6(a) shows
the lift coefficient of the airfoil during this interference. Figs. 6(b
and c) show the instantaneous surface pressure distribution of the
airfoil when the vortex core passes over to the front and tail,
respectively.
Fig. 7 shows the acoustic results of the NACA0015 airfoil for
the unsteady case, with AoA ¼ 8.0°, Ma ¼ 0.2, and Re ¼ 1.6 e5,
using the proposed prediction method and the comparison data
from Shen (Shen et al. 2009). Fig. 8(a) shows that the spectrum
of NACA0012 airfoil under the condition of inflow velocity is
39.6 m=s and the Re ¼ 8.3 e5 (Brooks and Hodgson 1981; Ewert
et al. 2009). Figs. 8(b and c) are the sound pressure of the UH-1H
rotor and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) model
AFC rotor, respectively. In Fig. 8(b), the UH-1H rotor is in hover,
the blade tip Mach number is 0.7, and the noise observation point is
in the plane with a 3.09 radius (Baeder et al. 1993). In Fig. 8(c), the
JAXA model rotor radius is 1 m, with a rotational speed of 600 rpm
and incoming flow of 20.1 m=s, and the noise observation point is
© ASCE 04021111-5
at the azimuth of 62°, 0.85R spanwise, and 0.9R below the rotor
plane (Aoyama et al. 2006).
Although the accuracy of URANS and the acoustic analogy
method used in this paper is different from that of the large eddy
simulation (LES) and computational aeroacoustics (CAA) method,
it is still effective enough because the major noise of the involved
cases is in the medium frequency (about 1 kHz).
The Process and Performance of Active Control
Implementation of Active Noise Control
Fig. 9 shows the airfoil with AFC used in this study; it was obtained
by splitting the NACA0012 airfoil. The chord length of the original
airfoil was c ¼ 0.18 m, and the chord length of the trailing edge
flap (TEF) was ctef ¼ 0.35c. The gap between the main airfoil and
the TEF was Lgap ¼ 1% to match the conventional model. In this
model, the main airfoil and the incoming flow were horizontal so
that the AoA of the main airfoil was 0°. The TEF’s deflection angle
is shown in Eq. (11), where At is the deflection amplitude, Ωt is the
deflection frequency, and φt is the deflection phase; the downward
deflection is positive
J. Aerosp. Eng.
 Fig. 7. The verification of NACA0015 noise prediction: (a) sound pressure level; and (b) noise spectrum.

Fig. 8. The verification of airfoil and rotor noise prediction about NACA0012: (a) noise spectrum of NACA0012 airfoil; (b) noise of UH-1H rotor
when hovering; and (c) noise of JAXA model AFC rotor.

© ASCE 04021111-6 J. Aerosp. Eng.

 Fig. 9. The airfoil with AFC and its parameters.
θt ¼ At · sinðΩt t þ φt Þ ð11Þ
The reference value of the angular velocity Ω0 ¼ 183.6 rad=s
conforms to the rotor motion of the real airfoil with AFC. The base
case parameters were as follows: the TEF’s deflection frequency
was Ωt ¼ 2Ω0 , the deflection amplitude was At ¼ 5.4°, and the
deflection phase φt ¼ −60°.
Fig. 10 shows the overset grid and its interpolation boundary.
There were 37,000 cells in the main airfoil block with 150 cells
distributed along the chord, and 18,000 cells in the TEF block, with
100 along the chord. The size of the background grid area was
(−10c to þ20c, −6c to þ6c) with 48,160 cells, and its boundary
is the pressure-far-field. The inner boundary of the main airfoil grid
and the TEF grid is the solid wall, and the outer boundary is the
overset interpolation boundary. The mesh had 103,000 cells to sat-
isfy the grid size of yþ ≈ 1 (based on the chord length of the origi-
nal airfoil) at the wall surface. After the overset assembly, there
were 65,700 cells in the normal grid and 1,583 cells in the overset
interpolation. The gap region box shows the overset interpolation
boundary cells of the TEF and the main airfoil, hiding the back-
ground mesh in the figure.
Fig. 11 is a schematic diagram of adding an artificial vortex,
where Xv is the horizontal distance between the vortex center and
the leading edge of the airfoil, and Yv is the vertical distance from
the vortex center to the chord. Similar to the actual rotor vortex
interaction, the added vortex turns clockwise. The vorticity magni-
tude was Γ ¼ 0.3 [dimensionless value due to the inflow velocity
and chord length by Eq. (5)], and the vortex core radius was a ¼
0.2c. In the simulation, the inflow velocity was 0.6 Mach and Re ¼
4.8 e6. The steady flow field was initialized, and the artificial
vortex was added after 10 unsteady motion periods of the TEF
Fig. 10. The mesh of the airfoil with AFC after overset assembly.
© ASCE 04021111-7
Fig. 11. The diagram of adding the vortex interaction to the airfoil
with AFC.
deflection at Yv ¼ −2.0a on the background grid’s left side [at po-
sition ð−10c; −0.4cÞ]. The real-time step of the unsteady simula-
tion was 1=2,000 of the TEF deflection, and 100 pseudotime steps
were used per real-time step to ensure convergence. It required
about 103 real time-steps for the vortex to pass over the chord
length. The motion path of the added artificial vortex had two
modes: (1) for the fixed mode, the vortex moved only according
to the incoming flow without any vertical motion; and (2) for
the free mode, the velocity magnitude and direction of the vortex
were determined by the location of the grid cell. The fixed mode
was involved in highlighting the noise reduction from changing the
load fluctuation by the AFC control only. The noise recoding
started at Xv ¼ −5.0c and ended at Xv ¼ 4.7c. All observation
points were located around the aerodynamic center [at position
(0; 0.25c)], which was on a circular region with a radius of 5.0c,
and a specific observation point among them, which was directly
below the aerodynamic center of the airfoil, marked as Pobs .
The Result after Adding Active Control
Fig. 12 shows the velocity field when no vortex is added, and for
the control case, its parameters are set according to the preceding
base parameters. It can be seen that the flow field near the TEF can
be affected by its deflection, but the upstream region only changed
a little. At the same time, the maximum local velocity is less than
J. Aerosp. Eng.
 Fig. 12. Comparison of the velocity field with and without active control: (a) without control; and (b) with control.

Fig. 13. The lift and drag variation of the AFC airfoil: (a) lift; and (b) drag.

0.8 Mach, so there is no need to pay attention to the local shock
wave in this paper.
Fig. 13 further shows the lift and drag change of the AFC airfoil
when only adding the free vortex and deflection moving, respec-
tively. It can be observed that the lift and drag on the airfoil can be
changed by adding artificial vortex and TEF deflection, but the
change caused by the artificial vortex is obviously larger than that
of the AFC controlled, which is similar to the actual AFC rotor
under BVI conditions. The change of the drag from the TEF
deflection is very small; thus, it is not discussed in this paper.
However, when the artificial vortex increases the lift (Xv ¼
−1.0c ∼ 0c), the lift change by TEF deflecting is also positive.
Fig. 14 shows the noise levels with and without the AFC and
with and without the addition of the artificial vortex. All the maxi-
mum noise points were located at the polar angles of 90° and 270°,
which were directly above and below the airfoil center (and Pobs is
the below one). However, due to the TEF movement, the noise of
the airfoil with AFC was 10 to 20 dB higher than that without
movement. Figs. 14(b and c) show the noise levels of the fixed and
free mode with and without AFC after adding the artificial vortex.
The control parameters are the same as the base parameter de-
scribed in “Implementation of Active Noise Control.” The shape of
the curve with the added vortex was similar to that without the vor-
tex, but the peak value of the noise with the active control was about
2 to 3 dB higher than that with no control for the lift, which could
increase at the same time [Fig. 13(a)]. Besides, the noise level in
front of the airfoil was smaller in the fixed mode than in the free
mode, and there was no significant difference in the other obser-
vation points between the modes.
Fig. 15(a) shows the vortex core’s motion path in the free
mode in the Y-axis direction. Because the TEF was at the trailing
edge, the vortex path upstream of the aerofoil was not affected or
affected very little. Moreover, even though the vortex core was far
away from the chord, the noise magnitude was not significantly
reduced because the induced velocity only changed by 6%, ac-
cording to Eq. (5). The load fluctuation of the airfoil in the Y-axis

© ASCE 04021111-8 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 14. Comparison of the noise levels with and without active control: (a) without adding the vortex; (b) after adding the vortex, fixed mode; and
(c) after adding the vortex, free mode.

direction was at a similar level, as shown in Figs. 15(b and c).
There was no significant difference in the load fluctuation between
the fixed mode and the free mode, and the peak value occurred at
the same stage when the vortex approached the leading edge.
Also, it is observed from Fig. 15(a) that in the free mode, the
addition of AFC significantly changed the motion path of the vor-
tex core away from the horizontal axis when it left the airfoil.
However, the far distance between the vortex core and the airfoil’s
trailing edge in the X-axis direction did not affect the load fluc-
tuation and noise level.
In general, the AFC control tended to increase the load
fluctuation and noise level due to the additional motion. How-
ever, when the vortex left the airfoil, it moved away from the
chord and could reduce the downstream airfoil-vortex interaction
noise.
Effects of the Active Control Parameters
The Deflection Amplitude
Figs. 16(a and b) show the noise level at the observation point Pobs
(directly below the airfoil center) and the load fluctuation of the
airfoil for different deflection amplitudes of the TEF in the fixed
mode. Figs. 16(c and d) show the changes in the noise level, vortex
path, and load fluctuation in the free mode. The deflection phase is

© ASCE 04021111-9 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 15. The vortex motion path and load fluctuation with and without active control: (a) the vortex motion path in the free mode; (b) the load
fluctuation in the fixed mode; and (c) the load fluctuation in the free mode.

−60° in Figs. 16(a and c) and −15° in Figs. 16(b and d), and the
other parameters are the same as in the base case. There was only a
negligible difference in the noise level and load fluctuation between
the fixed and free modes. The noise level was not reduced in the
fixed mode and free mode at the deflection phase of −60°. As the
deflection amplitude increased, the noise level and the downward
displacement of the vortex core increased. However, the noise level
was reduced when the deflection phase was −15°, and the load fluc-
tuation can be released with an increase in the amplitude. In sum-
mary, it was observed that an increase in the deflection amplitude
improved the control effect and only increased the noise reduction
when it had a noise reduction condition; otherwise, it made the
situation worse.
The Deflection Phase
Previous studies have shown that the TEF deflection phase is a cru-
cial factor in AFC control because the stage of significant BVI in a
rotor blade is very short in the rotation cycle (Aoyama et al. 2005).
In this study, the simulation condition was as close as possible to
the actual flight environment. The ratio of the time for the added
vortex to cross the chord length to the reference frequency
(corresponding to the rotor rotation period) was 38.91. Therefore,
in the airfoil-vortex interaction stage, the change in the angle due to
the TEF deflection is minimal. If the appropriate flow field envi-
ronment is not determined in advance, it will not adjust when the
vortex is approaching the airfoil.
Fig. 17 shows the sound pressure level of the noise at the ob-
servation point Pobs in the free mode for different deflection phases.
Because the deflection frequency is twice the reference frequency,
the noise level at the observation point Pobs is reduced in the phase
range of −30° to 15° and 150° to 375° (−165°). The noise at the
observation point Pobs is reduced by 1.15 dB at −15° and 1.52 dB
at 165°.
Fig. 18 shows the difference in the velocity’s Y-direction mag-
nitude and the flow field pressure with and without the −15° de-
flection phase active control. The difference in the velocity in the
Y-direction between the upper and lower surfaces on the trailing
airfoil was smaller with active control than without active control,
and the pressure imbalance was weakened. This phenomenon can
reduce the fluctuation of the airfoil and is the key mechanism of
noise reduction.
Figs. 19(a and b) show the load fluctuation and vortex path for
different deflection phases, and Fig. 19(c) shows the vortex’s

© ASCE 04021111-10 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 16. The result of increasing the TEF deflection amplitude: (a) fixed mode with deflection phase −60°; (b) fixed mode with deflection phase −15°;
(c) free mode with deflection phase −60°; and (d) free mode with deflection phase −15°.

relative Y-axis shift with and without active control. For the −15°
deflection phase, the load fluctuation is reduced by 13.6% (result-
ing in a 1.27 dB reduction in the noise level). However, the sound
pressure level at the observation point Pobs and the load fluctuation
were significantly increased for the −75° and −60° deflection
phases, although the vortex path [Fig. 19(b)] was far away from
the chord. The reason was that the TEF was deflected from the
upper to the lower surface, and the induced flow pushed the vortex
away from the chord, causing increases in the load fluctuation and
noise. Besides, the noise at the observation point Pobs also

© ASCE 04021111-11 J. Aerosp. Eng.


Fig. 17. In the free mode, the observation point P’s noise level with
different deflection phases of the TEF.
increased when the vortex core was pulled closer to the chord in
the −150° and −135° phases. The maximum noise reduction oc-
curred in the −15° phase, and the vortex path was changed slightly.
Thus, it can be concluded that the AFC could suppress the load
Fig. 18. The velocity and pressure field with and without active control in the free mode: (a) the velocity magnitude in the Y-axis direction; and (b) the
pressure field.
© ASCE
fluctuation and reduce the noise. Moreover, when the vortex passed
over the airfoil, the TEF was deflected from the lower to the upper
surface, achieving maximum noise reduction. The TEF deflection
also changed the motion path of the vortex, moving it away from or
closer to the chord, which controlled the downstream airfoil-vortex
interaction. However, this process introduced additional load fluc-
tuation, minimizing noise reduction or increasing the noise.
The Deflection Frequency
The noise reduction degree may also be affected by the deflection
frequency of the TEF. Figs. 20(a and b) show the sound pressure
level at the observation point Pobs and the airfoil load fluctuation at
different frequencies in the free mode in the −60° deflection phase.
Noise reduction was not achieved at 1-, 2-, and 3-fold increases in
the reference frequency as the load fluctuation increased. However,
when the frequency was increased 4-fold, the TEF was deflected
from the lower to the upper surface at a high angular velocity as the
vortex passed over the airfoil. Thus, the load fluctuation of the air-
foil was reduced, and the sound pressure level at the observation
point Pobs was relatively low (although the noise level was still
higher than without active control).
Similarly, for the −15° deflection phase condition in the section
“The Deflection Phase,” the noise sound pressure level at the ob-
servation point Pobs and the load fluctuation of the airfoil are
04021111-12 J. Aerosp. Eng.
Fig. 19. The load fluctuation and vortex path in the free mode for different deflection phases of the TEF: (a) the load fluctuation; (b) the vortex path;
and (c) the relative displacement in the Y-axis direction.

Fig. 20. The effect of changing deflection frequency in the free mode with the −60° deflection phase: (a) the sound pressure level at the observation
point Pobs ; and (b) the load fluctuation of the airfoil.

© ASCE 04021111-13 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 21. The effect of changing the deflection frequency in the free mode and the −15° deflection phase on the sound pressure level: (a) the noise
sound pressure level of the observation point Pobs ; and (b) the load fluctuation of the airfoil.

obtained by the changing frequency and shown in Figs. 21(a and b).
It can be seen that the noise reduction is realized only at 2 times the
reference frequency condition. However, at the 4 times frequency,
the TEF is deflecting from upper to lower, so the noise at the ob-
servation point has increased dramatically.
A comparison of the results for the −60° and −15° deflection
phases indicated that the disturbance caused by the deflection and
the changes in the noise level and load fluctuation were smaller at a
low frequency than at a high frequency. However, an increase in the
deflection frequency did not reduce the noise, but the level of noise
reduction still depended on the phase. If the TEF was deflected
from the lower to the upper surface when the vortex passed over
the airfoil, the noise was reduced, and vice versa. Nevertheless, due
to the short response time of the TEF deflection at a high frequency,
the high-frequency control can be used.

The Position of Adding the Artificial Vortex

The load fluctuation and noise level caused by the airfoil-vortex
interaction may be affected by the vertical distance between the
airfoil and vortex. Differences in the flow field occur when the vor-
tex is added to the upper or lower sides of the airfoil. Three posi-
tions for the vortex addition are tested in addition to the cases
mentioned above at Yv ¼ −2.0a in this study. The vortices added
at Yv are 2.0a, 1.0a, −1.0a, and −2.0a, referred to as States P2, P1,
N1, and N2, respectively. The uncontrolled load fluctuations are
shown in Fig. 22. It is observed that the closer the vortex was to
the chord, the higher the load fluctuation was. For the same inter-
action distance condition, the fluctuation was higher when the
vortex was added at the lower side. The order of the positions re-
garding the load fluctuations was N1 > P1 > N2 > P2. The load
fluctuations with and without active control are shown in Fig. 23.
The sound pressure level at the observation point Pobs and the
airfoil load fluctuation for different positions of adding the vortex
and different deflection phases are obtained and shown in Fig. 24.
According to Figs. 24(a and b) and Fig. 17, the maximum noise
reduction deflection phase was almost the same for different vor-
tex positions, and good noise reduction results were obtained at
Fig. 22. The load fluctuation for different positions of adding the
vortices in the free mode without active control.
deflection phases of −15° and þ165°. Furthermore, decreases in the
sound pressure level of 0.98 dB and 1.56 dB were achieved for
the states N1 and P2, respectively, for deflection phases of þ165°.
A similar phenomenon is shown in Figs. 24(c and d) and Fig. 19(a),
indicating that the optimum deflection phase is not affected by the
position of the added vortex.
Figs. 25 and 26 show the vortex path for different positions
of adding the vortex and using the same active control. When
vortices are added on different sides of the airfoil, the vortex mo-
tion direction is opposite when it is across the airfoil [Fig. 25(a)].
However, compared to the uncontrolled condition, the vortex al-
ways moved in the negative direction of the Y-axis when the active
control was added, as shown in Fig. 25(b). Figs. 26(a and b) and
19(c) show that when the vortex was added at different posi-
tions, similar trends were observed for the same deflection phase.

© ASCE 04021111-14 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 23. The load fluctuation for different positions of adding vortices in the free mode with and without active control: (a) P2; (b) P1; (c) N1; and
(d) N2.
There were only some differences in motion displacement. There-
fore, this indicates that the moving trend is not sensitive to the
position of the added vortex, allowing for the control of the real
helicopter’s rotor vortex interaction.
Conclusion
In this paper, the load fluctuation of an airfoil with the AFC of the
airfoil-vortex interaction was analyzed using the overset grid CFD
method. The sound pressure level was determined by the acoustic
analogy method. The mechanism by which AFC minimizes airfoil-
vortex interference noise was revealed. The following conclusions
were drawn:
• The AFC of an airfoil did not reduce noise directly because
of the additional disturbance caused by the TEF motion.
Because the TEF deflection does not significantly affect the
upstream flow field, the level of noise reduction was relatively
low, and the difference between the fixed mode and the free
mode was relatively small.
• The mechanism of noise reduction is the deflection of TEF to
reduce the load fluctuation, so the deflection phase was the most
important parameter influencing the degree of noise reduction.
The optimum level of noise reduction was achieved when the
© ASCE 04021111-15
vortex passed over the airfoil, and the TEF was deflecting from
the lower to the upper side at the maximum speed; otherwise,
the noise increased. For the case simulated in this study, maxi-
mum noise reductions of 1.52 dB, 0.98 dB, and 1.5 6 dB were
achieved when the positions of the added vortex were −0.4c,
−0.2c, and 0.2c, respectively, for the þ165° deflection phase.
• Increasing the TEF’s deflection amplitude improved the con-
trol effect and only increased the noise reduction when it was
on a noise reduction condition. Increasing the deflection fre-
quency resulted in a rapid change in the deflection angle,
while the level of noise reduction still depended on the deflec-
tion phase.
• The optimum deflection phase for maximum noise reduction
was not affected by the position of the added vortex. Further-
more, the same trend of the vortex path was observed when the
vortex left the airfoil for the same control parameters, regardless
of whether the position of the added vortex was above or below
the airfoil. In other words, the same AFC parameters provide the
same performance for different flow fields.
Although the noise reduction of the AFC in this simulation was
not exceptional, the AFC showed good performance for controlling
the vortex direction. Therefore, the vertical distance of the down-
stream airfoil-vortex interaction can be controlled, although further
research is required.
J. Aerosp. Eng.
Fig. 24. The sound pressure level and load fluctuation when the vortex is added at different positions in the free mode for different active deflection
phases: (a) the sound pressure level of State N1; (b) the sound pressure level of State P2; (c) the load fluctuation of State N1; and (d) the load
fluctuation of State P2.

Fig. 25. The vortex path when the vortex is added at different positions in the free mode with the same active control: (a) the vortex (compared to the
initial position); and (b) the vortex path (compared to the uncontrolled condition).

© ASCE 04021111-16 J. Aerosp. Eng.

Fig. 26. The vortex path when the vortex is added at different positions in the free mode for different deflection phases with the same active control:
(a) N1; and (b) P2.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this
study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable
request.
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the Priority Academic Program Devel-
opment of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).
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