Noise radiated by a non-isothermal, temporal mixing layer

The ability of Lighthill's analogy to predict the sound radiated by a transitional mixing layer is evaluated by means of direct numerical simulation (DNS). The specific case of low Mach number flows with density variations is investigated. In order to limit the global computational cost, the acoustic source information is based on numerical results where the sound waves have been removed. It is shown that the low Mach number approximation coupled with the acoustic analogy can lead to very accurate predictions for the radiated sound if the acoustic sources in Lighthill's equation are taken into account carefully. Results for the acoustic intensity deduced from a repeated use of the Lighthill's analogy over a wide range of Mach numbers allow us to discuss the adequacy of scaling laws proposed by previous authors (J. Sound Vib. 28(3), 563–585, 1973; 31(4), 391–397, 1973; 48(1), 95–111, 1976) for the prediction of noise from hot jets.