The Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings Analogy for Full Aircraft Noise Prediction

The Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings Analogy for Full Aircraft Noise Prediction

Emanuele STICCHI, Damiano CASALINO, Daniele RAGNI, Francesco AVALLONE

Abstract. This study investigates the influence of different Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW–H) formulations on far-field noise prediction for a propeller-driven strut-braced wing aircraft. High-fidelity flow data were obtained using the Lattice–Boltzmann Very-Large-Eddy Simulation (LB-VLES) solver PowerFLOW®, and acoustic predictions were carried out using the permeable-surface, solid-surface, and volumetric FW–H analogies included in the Opty∂B™ toolkit. Results show that the permeable formulation reproduces both the amplitude and directivity of the dominant tonal lobes in good agreement with the noise directly extracted from the CFD simulation. The solid formulation, instead, exhibits discrepancies in regions exposed to the impingement of propeller-generated sound waves, where pressure fluctuations are detected but not correctly propagated. The volumetric approach, while computationally demanding, provides valuable physical insight by confirming the absence of actual radiating sources on that part of the fuselage. For similar configurations, the permeable formulation represents the most reliable and computationally efficient choice for predicting far-field noise.

Keywords
Aeroacoustics, Acoustics Analogy, Aircraft Noise

Published online 7/20/2026, 6 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Emanuele STICCHI, Damiano CASALINO, Daniele RAGNI, Francesco AVALLONE, The Ffowcs-Williams and Hawkings Analogy for Full Aircraft Noise Prediction, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 69, pp 308-313, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904251-55

The article was published as article 55 of the book CEAS – AIDAA Conference 2025

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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