About the project
The PhD student will address directly the major gap in understanding aimed at enabling the design and development of efficient and quiet future multi-rotor propulsion systems. This project describes detailed flow and noise measurements in state-of-the-art facilities to gain a fundamental understanding into the aerodynamics and aeroacoustics of overlapping propeller systems.
High fidelity flow and noise data will be used to establish new design principles and semi-analytical predictive models for high-efficiency low-noise multi-rotor configurations.
The PhD student will carry out aerodynamic measurements using state-of-the-art imaging techniques in brand-new experimental facilities and developing the analytical model for the prediction of noise and compare against acoustic measurements.
You will join the highly motivated researchers in the Acoustics group at the Institute of sound and Vibration Research (ISVR), which is recognised as one of the world’s leading centres for the investigation of sound and vibration phenomena.
The global interest in small multi-rotor drones, unmanned aerial vehicles and remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) is growing rapidly. It is now widely accepted that noise is one of the main factors that could limit the public acceptance and adoption of drones. Drones are currently designed for performance, with relatively little consideration given to noise.
In this project, you will have the unique opportunity to design new experiments in state-of-the-art wind tunnels (brand-new boundary layer tunnel and aeroacoustic wind tunnel), record and analyse high-fidelity experimental data acquired using advanced flow diagnostic methods.