Self-induced sound generation by flow over perforated duct liners

An adverse “singing” phenomenon due to flow over perforated liners in a duct was studied experimentally. The liners consisted of honeycomb structures bonded to and sandwiched between two flat aluminum skins. The inner skin in contact with the flow had holes (perforations) with pitch distances either equal to or different from those of the honeycomb structures, forming, respectively, narrow-band or broadband liners. The shedding of vortices in the flow over these holes induced excitation of acoustic modes within the duct, and under the condition whereby the cut-on frequency of an excited mode coincided with, or was very near to, the shedding frequency a very strong tone corresponding to that particular modal cut-on frequency resulted. For narrow-band liners, the “singing” phenomenon could also be induced by cavity resonance. The shedding frequency increased with increase in flow velocities and thus higher order acoustic modes were excited consecutively in a similar manner. The Strouhal number calculated from the observed shedding frequency and the flow velocity was found to vary directly with the hole diameter of the perforate. The high signal to noise ratio during the peak of self-excitation presents a new method in the determination of the wall admittance under the flow conditions.