Anyone who lives under a flight path is familiar with the “whishing” and “whooshing” sounds of an aircraft flying above. Professor Philippe Lavoie (UTIAS) is developing technologies to contain this noise to just the immediate area around an airport.
Lavoie’s project is among five from U of T Engineering to receive funding from the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) program, which aims to promote innovative research of strategic value to Ontario.
He will use the funding to tackle the first key challenge: understanding how an aircraft’s high-lift wing configuration — which gives an aircraft extra lift during takeoff and landing — creates and emits noise. His team will also explore strategies for mitigating this noise while maintaining aerodynamic performance.
“We are investigating a complex phenomenon that involves fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, acoustics, and interactions between the three,” explains Lavoie, whose work will involve detailed wind tunnel experiments and high-fidelity computational aeroacoustics (CAA) simulations.
“Ultimately, this work will help develop novel and quiet high-lift system configurations that can be implemented in the next generation of aircraft.”