OVERFLOW/PSU-WOPWOP Predictions and NFAC Acoustics Measurements of the Joby Aviation Propeller in Hover and Edgewise Flight

An extensive test campaign was conducted at the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex 40- by- 80-Foot wind tunnel to acquire performance, loads, and acoustics measurements of the Joby Aviation propeller across a variety of operating conditions. The dataset provided validation of the design methodology as well as verification of computational tools. The Vold-Kalman filter was used to extract the shaft-coherent propeller noise in hover to obtain the residual noise, representing the broadband noise. This data verified broadband noise tip speed scaling laws as well as a low-order empirical model for overall sound pressure level. The OVERFLOW/PSU-WOPWOP method was used to simulate the propeller in pure edgewise flight and shown to accurately predict propeller performance. The low-frequency acoustics were predicted well but the solver underpredicted frequencies above 300 Hz, possibly due to the inability to capture the turbulent component of the blade-wake and blade-vortex interaction. The computational method was used to simulate the propeller at various angles of attack in low-speed edgewise flight and captured trends and spectral content up to 1 kHz. The predictions showed noise sources moving from root to tip as the propeller angle of attack increased. However, the high-frequency content was not captured for all cases. The experimental campaign was successful in characterizing the acoustics of the Joby Aviation propeller, but more research is needed to be able to properly predict and understand the noise sources throughout the flight envelope.