Impact of Optimized Trailing Edge Shapes on Noise Generation

A realistic transonic airfoil at landing speed is optimized for lift achieving a lift increase of 10.4% with minimal changes to the shape. This is realized by a Gurney type flap deformation of the trailing edge. For an efficient process, the optimization uses sensitivity maps generated by an adjoint unsteady RANS flow solver. Using scale-resolving DDES simulations, the lift-only optimized airfoil shape produces around 4 dB more noise than the base shape. The noise is evaluated using a simplification of Curle’s equation.