How Quiet Will We Vy? Development of Multi-Fidelity Methods for Advanced Air Mobility Aeroacoustics

The field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) encompasses Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), Urban Air Mobility (UAM), and Regional Air Mobility (RAM). The vast number of conceptual designs that have been produced by these industries represent novel and state-of-the-art solutions to air travel and cargo delivery, but their acceptance heavily depends on how quiet they can be. Multi-fidelity computational aerodynamics and computational aeroacoustics methods have been developed and assessed for the prediction of advanced air mobility vehicles from the scale of UAS to RAM. The first part of the talk will address advanced turbulence modeling techniques, aeroacoustic sources, and multirotor trim optimization in the scope of high-fidelity methods. Fundamental single rotor and dual rotor interactions will guide the study of the full multirotor configurations. The second part of the talk will address a low-fidelity framework more applicable to conceptual design in the industry. Transcend Air’s Vy 400 is shown to meet the most stringent FAA noise requirements while exceeding the capabilities of traditional VTOL aircraft. The development of multi-fidelity methods will enable proper evaluation of performance and noise from design through certification.