Research Projects

The current research project aims to develop and investigate novel dimpled airfoils by providing novel dimple designs on the airfoils for the control of the aerodynamic noise generated by the interaction between the airfoil and the turbulence, with minimum impact on the aerodynamic performance. In this project, a co-ordinated aeroacoustic and aerodynamic study of this new surface topology is proposed for reducing aerodynamic noise without making a significant impact on the aerodynamic performance. This new technology can be applied to industrial fans, wind turbines, and propeller blades for the control of overall aerodynamic noise. The idea to use dimples in airfoil evolved from the golf ball since earlier studies reported that the deep dimples could effectively reduce the noise levels. The control of total aerodynamic noise with reduced aerodynamic penalty could be easily achieved by applying dimples to the airfoils. The novel idea of making a new dimpled airfoil model by introducing novel dimple configurations as well as an arrangement to enhance the noise reductions with minimum aerodynamic penalty is highly challenging. Also, the control of total far-field noise by using novel dimples without affecting the aerodynamic performance significantly is scarce in the literature, which forms the specific objective of the current proposal.