Aeroacoustic optimization framework integrating modeFRONTIER: a use case

The surge of novel aircraft configurations due to the recent interest in urban air mobility calls for specific design and analysis tools. These should take into account the non-standard flow and noise behavior of said configurations and allow for efficient design space exploration and shape/layout optimization.
In the context of the ENODISE (ENabling Optimized DISruptivE airframepropulsion integration concepts) European project, an aero-acoustic optimization framework for distributed electric propulsion (DEP) systems fusing lowfidelity aerodynamics and semi-analytical noise evaluations has been established.
The layout of a reference case consisting of a straight wing section with three co-rotating, three-bladed propellers has been optimized by varying the position and attitude of the propellers to improve system behavior during a typical climb segment.
The end goal is to use low-cost, relatively fast underlying models to obtain configurations that produce less tonal and broadband noise while maintaining or improving their aerodynamic performance. These models are able to be run on modest hardware, enabling the assessment of aero-acoustic effects from earlier design phases. For this purpose, modeFRONTIER is a key part in orchestrating different pieces of simulation software together to obtain better designs.
Results show that even after a low number of evaluations akin to a design of experiments stage, improvements on acoustic behavior of these types of configurations can be achieved through an analysis with low fidelity models.