• Energy Research

An electromechanical impedance model is applied to the case of a simply supported beam in an infinite rigid baffle with a fluid medium on one side. The effects of the fluid medium are included in the impedance analysis by considering fluid–structure interaction. The use of static and impedance model for structural acoustic analysis is discussed. Various power consumptions of PZT actuator-driven underwater beam structures will be quantified. The analysis discussed in this paper will be used to determine radiated structural acoustic power without using microphones. This work is the first step toward the determination of power requirements for underwater active structural acoustic control.

Thesis (Ph.D.), School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University ; Thermoacoustic phenomena in small-scale systems are investigated, and results are presented on the following topics: the acoustic properties of porous and fibrous materials, the modeling of thermoacoustic resonators with nonuniform medium and boundary conditions, and the harvesting of energy from tonal sound excited by heat addition and vortex shedding. The transfer function measurement system is used to find the acoustic properties of porous and fibrous materials. The complex wave numbers and characteristic impedances of reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) and plastic mesh are determined using a variation of the three-microphone and four-microphone methods with the transfer function technique. The wave numbers and characteristic impedances of RVC and plastic mesh can be estimated from the obtained results. To find the effect of temperature difference, relative acoustic power changes across RVC, stacked plastic screens and stacked steel screens at ; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Washington State University

The present Paper aims to present a brief discourse on acoustic features related to human speech from the view point of analysis. After giving a brief review of modern methods currently in use in speech communication research, acoustic characteristics and features of human speech sound on the basis of spectrographic analysis of a limited number of Hindi Speech Sound are presented. The acoustic phonetic and the aeoustic prosodic parameters of human speech are briefly explained and the formant frequencies, and duration of Hindi vowels, concentration of acoustic energy for plosives and some affricates along with other related Parameters of conmsonants are presented in tabular form and discussed.

To meet the demands of a larger share of the electrical energy produced by intermittent renewable energy sources, an increasing amount of plannable energy sources is needed. One solution to handle this is to increase the amount of energy storage in the electrical grids. The most widespread energy storage technology today is by far pumped hydro storage (PHS). In an attempt to enable PHS at low-head sites, the ALPHEUS (augmenting grid stability through low head pumped hydro energy utilization and storage) EU Horizon 2020 research project was formed. In ALPHEUS, new axial flow, low-head, contra-rotating pump-turbine (CRPT) designs are investigated. A CRPT has two individual runners rotating in opposite directions. CRPTs developed within the ALPHEUS project have already been thoroughly analysed at stationary and transient operating conditions by the authors. However, the effects on the CPRT's performance due to potential cavitation on the runner blade surfaces have previously not been investigated. For that reason, the current study focuses on running cavitation simulations on a model scale CRPT using the OpenFOAM computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. In the CFD simulations, cavitation is modelled as a two-phase liquid-vapour mixture using the interPhaseChangeDyMFoam solver. The two runner domains have a prescribed solid body rotation. Condensation and evaporation processes are handled with the Schnerr-Sauer model. Turbulence is managed with the k-omega shear stress transport-scale adaptive simulation (kOmegaSSTSAS) model. Flow-driving pressure differences over the computational domain are achieved with the headLossPressure boundary condition to emulate a larger experimental test facility of which the CRPT is part. Figure 1 shows a snapshot in time of an iso-surface (light blue) of cavitating cloud with alpha_liquid=0.9 in turbine mode. At this operating point, a small amount of cavitating flow is found by the suction side of the leading edges of the left runner, which is facing a lower reservoir. In Figure 2, the same type of iso-surface is shown, however now in pump mode. It is seen that the pump mode operating condition is much worse than the turbine mode. The cavitating cloud covers most of the suction side of the left runner, additionally, the tip-clearance region is also exposed to cavitation. Furthermore, traces of cavitation are found on the leading edges of the right runner as well as on the left small-support struts. It is thus important to, at least, analyse the pump mode to determine if and how much cavitation affects the CRPS's operating performance.

The experimental vibro-acoustic characterization of panels submitted to random pressure fields is of great interest in the industry as well as in research laboratories. For the transport sector, this type of excitation can be found when a turbulent flow develops at the wall of a moving vehicle for example. The pressure fluctuations induced by the turbulent boundary layer excite the panels which radiate a noise inside the cabin. The experimental reproduction of those pressure fluctuations requires test means which can be very costly (i.e., wind tunnel, in situ tests) and whose physical parameters can hardly be controlled. The repeatability of measurements can thereby be questioned which makes it hard to compare different technological solutions. A second example of random pressure field is the diffuse acoustic field. This latter is usually reproduced in a reverberant room which is often coupled with an anechoic chamber by means of the panel whose acoustic insulation is to be tested. A pressure field is assumed to be diffuse if the acoustic energy comes from every direction with an equiprobable intensity of the incident waves. This assumption is never fully reached in practice (lack of grazing incident waves, strong modal behavior of the room at low frequencies, etc.). A laboratory tool which allows reproducing the effect of those random excitations in a controlled environment is therefore of great interest. In this context, this thesis aims at developing an experimental method to characterize the vibro-acoustic behavior of panels under random pressure fields without using the common test means (wind tunnel, reverberant room, in situ tests, etc.). For relevance sake, this approach must compensate for the previously stated issues. The approaches studied in this work are based on the mathematical formulation of the problem in the wavenumber domain. This latter allows an explicit separation of the contributions of the excitation via the wall-pressure cross-spectrum, from those of the vibro-acoustic behavior of the panel via so-called `sensitivity functions'. Assuming the wall-pressure cross-spectrum of the excitation is known, it is only required to experimentally determine those sensitivity functions, on the panel or in the acoustic medium, to determine the response of the panel to the considered excitation by post-processing. Two methods aiming at determining the sensitivity functions will be numerically and experimentally studied: the source scanning technique and the method based on the reciprocity principle. Results obtained with those method are compared to measurements using standard test means to attest the validity of those methods. Several vibro-acoustic indicators will be confronted while considering the two previously mentioned excitations and for two types of panels: an academic panel and a `complex' from the aeronautic sector. This latter shows the applicability of the method in an industrial context.; La caractérisation expérimentale de la réponse vibro-acoustique de panneaux excités par des champs de pression aléatoire est d'un grand intérêt dans le monde de la recherche, aussi bien industrielle qu'académique. Dans le domaine des transports, ce type d'excitation se rencontre par exemple lorsqu'un écoulement turbulent se développe en paroi d'un véhicule en mouvement. Les fluctuations de pression induites par la couche limite turbulente excitent les parois qui rayonnent un bruit à l'intérieur de l'habitacle. La reproduction expérimentale de ces fluctuations de pression nécessite des moyens qui peuvent être très coûteux (i.e, tunnel aérodynamique, essais in situ) et dont il est difficile de maîtriser tous les paramètres physiques. Un second exemple de champ de pression aléatoire est le champ acoustique diffus. Celui-ci est généralement reproduit dans une chambre réverbérante que l'on couple souvent à une chambre anéchoïque par l'intermédiaire de la paroi dont on souhaite étudier l'isolation acoustique. Un champ acoustique est supposé diffus si l'énergie acoustique provient de toutes les directions et l'intensité des ondes incidentes est équiprobable, ce qui n'est jamais le cas en pratique (problème des angles rasants, modes propres en basse fréquence, etc.). Il y a donc un fort intérêt à disposer d'un outil de laboratoire permettant de reproduire l'effet d'excitations aléatoires dans un environnement qui peut être contrôlé. C'est dans ce contexte que s'inscrit cette thèse qui a pour but de développer une méthode expérimentale permettant de caractériser le comportement vibro-acoustique de panneaux sous champ de pression aléatoire tout en se passant des moyens de mesures usuels (soufflerie, chambre réverbérante, essais in situ, etc.). Les approches étudiées dans cette thèse se basent sur la formulation mathématique du problème dans le domaine des nombres d'onde. Celle-ci met en évidence une séparation explicite des contributions de l'excitation via son interspectre de pression pariétale, de celles du comportement vibro-acoustique du panneau via des fonctions appelées "fonctions de sensibilité". Supposant donc que l'interspectre de pression pariétale de l'excitation est connu, il suffit de déterminer expérimentalement ces fonctions de sensibilité, sur le panneau ou dans le milieu acoustique, pour déterminer par post-traitement la réponse du panneau à l'excitation considérée. Deux méthodes permettant de déterminer les fonctions de sensibilité seront étudiées numériquement et validées expérimentalement: la méthode par antenne synthétique et la méthode basée sur le principe de réciprocité. Pour étudier la validité de ces méthodes, on compare leurs résultats à ceux obtenus par des moyens standards sur la base de plusieurs indicateurs vibro-acoustiques. Les méthodes sont validées en considérant les deux types d'excitations évoqués précédemment et pour deux types de panneaux: un panneau académique et un panneau "complexe" issu du domaine aéronautique.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2013 ; In coastal environments, when topographic and bathymetric constrictions are combined with large tidal amplitudes, strong currents (> 2 m/s) can occur. Because such environments are relatively rare and difficult to study, until recently, they have received little attention from the scientific community. However, in recent years, interest in developing tidal hydrokinetic power projects in these environments has motivated studies to improve this understanding. In order to support an analysis of the acoustic effects of tidal power generation, a multi-year study was conducted at a proposed project site in Puget Sound (WA) are analyzed at a site where peak currents exceeded 3.5 m/s. From these analyses, three noise sources are shown to dominate the observed variability in ambient noise between 0.02-30 kHz: anthropogenic noise from vessel traffic, sediment-generated noise during periods of strong currents, and flow-noise resulting from turbulence advected over the hydrophones. To assess the contribution of vessel traffic noise, one calendar year of Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship-traffic data was paired with hydrophone recordings. The study region included inland waters of the Salish Sea within a 20 km radius of the hydrophone deployment site in northern Admiralty Inlet. The variability in spectra and hourly, daily, and monthly ambient noise statistics for unweighted broadband and M-weighted sound pressure levels is driven largely by vessel traffic. Within the one-year study period, at least one AIS transmitting vessel is present in the study area 90% of the time and over 1,363 unique vessels are recorded. A noise budget for vessels equipped with AIS transponders identifies cargo ships, tugs, and passenger vessels as the largest contributors to noise levels. A simple model to predict received levels at the site based on an incoherent summation of noise from different vessel types yields a cumulative probability density function of broadband sound pressure ...

Artificial methods for noise filtering are required for the twenty-first century’s Factory vision 4.0. From various perspectives of physics, noise filtering capabilities could be addressed in multiple ways. In this article, the physics of noise control is first dissected into active and passive control mechanisms and then further different physics are categorized to visualize their respective physics, mechanism, and target of their respective applications. Beyond traditional passive approaches, the comparatively modern concept for sound isolation and acoustic noise filtering is based on artificial metamaterials. These new materials demonstrate unique interaction with acoustic wave propagation exploiting different physics, which is emphasized in this article. A few multi-functional metamaterials were reported to harvest energy while filtering the ambient noise simultaneously. It was found to be extremely useful for next-generation noise applications where simultaneously, green energy could be generated from the energy which is otherwise lost. In this article, both these concepts are brought under one umbrella to evaluate the applicability of the respective methods. An attempt has been made to create groundbreaking transformative and collaborative possibilities. Controlling of acoustic sources and active damping mechanisms are reported under an active mechanism. Whereas Helmholtz resonator, sound absorbing, spring-mass damping, and vibration absorbing approaches together with metamaterial approaches are reported under a passive mechanism. The possible application of metamaterials with ventilation while performing noise filtering is reported to be implemented for future Smart Cities.

This report discusses the design and use of a multi-arm, logarithmic spiral acoustic array by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for measurement and characterization of wind turbine-generated noise. The array was developed in collaboration with a team from the University of Colorado Boulder. This design process is a continuation of the elliptical array design work done by Simley. A description of the array system design process is presented, including array shape design, mechanical design, design of electronics and the data acquisition system, and development of post-processing software. System testing and calibration methods are detailed. Results from the initial data acquisition campaign are offered and discussed. Issues faced during this initial deployment of the array are presented and potential remedies discussed.