Test results show valve-like system reduces engine noise by more than 20dB
UK-based Camcon Technology's Binary Actuator Technology (BAT) is to become the focus of a consortium examining engine noise reduction technologies, following successful tests at Berlin Technical University (BTU) last year.
BAT is a magnetically driven valve-like system that can open and close over 4,000 times a second and is designed to reduce engine noise by disturbing bypass air, or improve combustion by regulating fuel flow into the engine.
The BTU research was carried out independently of Camcon. The company claims the German institution proved that the valve could reduce blade aerodynamic noise at the front of the engine by more than 20 dB.
Camcon's research, meanwhile, will examine bypass exhaust noise reduction and aims to increase the actuator's operating frequency to a more useful 10,000Hz. "The faster actuator would pulse air to help speed up the process of mixing. We are disturbing the bypass flow in such a way that we get certain patterns of mixing [when the air meets the atmosphere]," says its inventor and Camcon Technology founder Dr Wladyslaw Wygnanski.
The combustion application would use the valve to inject tiny amounts of fuel into a combustion chamber several thousand times a second to increase engine power output by improving burn stability. The noise reduction consortium includes Rolls-Royce and the UK Department of Trade and Industry.
ROB COPPINGER LONDON
Source: Flight International
