Dryden 1952
Dryden 1952
Dryden 1952
Hugh L. Dryden
A EM
The following article, by the director of
the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics, is based on an address pre-
sented before the Conference on Applied
Physics during last December's meeting
of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in Philadelphia.
Fig. 1. Inttrferosram for Flow around Circular \n Airfoil. Airfoil thickness 12 percent,
Marh Dumber 0.9. boundary layer turbul.-nl. nil photos courtesy ol NACA By Hugh L. Dryden
M PHYSICS TODAY
HYSICS IN
fAUTICAL DEVELOPMENT
has reversed the direction of influence. Now the aero- layer of air near the surface in which viscous forces
nautical engineer breaks down his new and difficult en- are appreciable, being in fact sufficient to bring the
gineering problems into their component problems in relative air speed to zero at the surface. The study of
physics, and brings pressure on physicists to study these shock waves, of shock-wave boundary-layer interac-
component problems by physical methods. This exten- tions, and of the reflection, refraction, and mutual in-
sion of the engineering development team to physicists terference of shock waves is a problem for the physi-
has brought added opportunities for the employment of cist and is best studied by physical methods.
physicists. More important to physics, however, is the In low speed flows, data on the flow field can be ob-
large number of new challenging problems in both ap- tained by static pressure probes, but at transonic and
plied and pure physics brought to light by close con- supersonic speeds it is difficult to measure pressures ac-
tact with a rapidly growing engineering field. curately with probes. The very presence of the probe
may change the flow considerably. Even pressure ori-
The Goal of Higher Speed fices in the walls do not give reliable measurements in
the presence of shock waves and other large pressure
MAY 1952
shock, waves additional effects appear because of the pressure is measured for a Mow accelerated from rest
excitation of vibrational degrees of freedom of the to high subsonic speeds and then suddenly brought to
diatomic molecules and because of departures from the rest at the nose of a small impact tube.
ideal gas law associated with finite molecular size and It is well known that meteors traveling through the
with intermolecular forces. air at high supersonic speeds get so hot from friction
When the Mach number exceeds 5, the speed is said with the air that their surface melts. At lower super-
to be hypersonic. At hypersonic Mach numbers of 10 sonic speeds the heating is by no means negligible, and
or more, the estimated rise in temperature at the stag- must be considered even at subsonic speeds for piloted
nation point is sufficient to cause both molecular dis- aircraft. It appears that limits set by aerodynamic heat-
sociation and atomic ionization of the air. The effect of ing and the adequacy of measures to control its effects
dissociation and ionization is to lower the stagnation may constitute the next most important barrier to still
temperature below the adiabatic value because of the further speed increases. This problem is one which
internal absorption of energy necessary for increased must be attacked by the methods of the physicist.
rotational and vibrational energy and dissociation and These are a few of the aerodynamic problems on the
for electronic excitation and atomic ionization. At the
NACA Langley Laboratory exploratory work has been
done in this field by firing projectiles through gases in
which the velocity of sound is much lower than in air
at normal temperatures and can be further reduced by
cooling to very low temperatures (NACA Technical
Note 2120). With moderate projectile speeds a Mach
number of 10 is readily obtainable. The equipment is
shown schematically in Fig. 2. In a recent experiment
by Sabol a ] lS-inch diameter conical projectile was fired
at 6000 ft./'sec, using a 30-caliber sabot, through xenon
gas at 74° F. and atmospheric pressure, and giving a
Mach number of 11. As shown in Fig. 3 the gas was
made luminous in a region near the nose. The calcu-
lated temperature behind the shock wave was 2846° K
and it was estimated that 0.1 percent of the xenon
atoms were ionized.
In high-velocity flow around bodies where the tem-
perature changes rapidly, there may be a failure of the
internal energies of the gas molecules to adjust suffi-
ciently rapidly to be in equilibrium with the tempera- Fig. 3. Luminosity and Shock Wave Formation at Mach Number 11
ture corresponding to the translational motion of the
molecules. The effect, commonly called heat-capacity advancing frontier of speed which give rise to prob-
lag, can be computed if the number of molecular col- lems in physics. There are many others of more im-
lisions required to establish equilibrium is known for mediate concern to designers of current transonic air-
planes but these have been avoided in this paper for
SPECTR0GH4PH
security reasons. They are being attacked both by theo-
retical and experimental methods. The most useful ex-
perimental tool is the wind tunnel, which has itself un-
dergone rapid development with great assistance from
physics and physicists. Electrical wire strain gages have
revolutionized wind tunnel balances; and shadow, schlie-
Fig. 2 Equipment ren, and interferometric methods make many features
for Study of Air
Flow at M a c h of the flow field visible.
Numbers of 10 or
More. Chamber may
contain any desired The Condensation Problem
gas and may be
cooled.
A Snecessary
THE SPEED FRONTIER ADVANCES, it is
to develop wind tunnels capable of
studying the problems of flight at ever increasing speed.
the gas or gas mixture. Physicists usually measure this A supersonic wind tunnel of cross section 8- by 6-feet
lag by sound-dispersion methods using acoustic inter- and 87,000 horsepower is in regular operation at speeds
ferometry, the changes of sound velocity with fre- up to twice the speed of sound. Exploratory work is in
quency being attributed to heat-capacity lag. At the progress in small equipment at much higher speeds,
NACA Langley Laboratory a gas-flow method has been and this work has revealed difficult technical problems.
used (NACA ARR 4A22), in which the loss of total The high speed in the test section of a supersonic wind
PHYSICS TODAY
were computed as a function of distance along the
stream axis. The details of the method are described in
NACA Technical Note 2441 by Durbin. The rate of
particle growth and the resulting local pressure could
then be calculated. The calculated pressure agreed with
the measured pressure and the air stream remained es-
sentially at the saturation temperature after the con-
densation particles became large enough to be detected
by the light-scattering equipment. A more sensitive
system moved the detection point closer to the com-
puted saturation point in the nozzle. Since the amount
of light is principally a function of particle radius, the
number of particles per unit volume could be assumed
to be constant, and the last points plotted with the
earlier data to give the particle size as function of dis-
tance along the nozzle axis. This curve extrapolated to
zero diameter at the saturation point in the nozzle,
Fig. 4. Simple Light Scattering Apparatus for Detection
of Condensation. verifying the conclusion that in the experiments air
condensed with practically no supersaturation.
tunnel is obtained by expanding air from a pressure of The next problem was to determine the source of the
one atmosphere or a few atmospheres to a very low- condensation nuclei which correspond to the dust nuclei
pressure, and the expansion is accompanied by a con- responsible for the formation of atmospheric fog. Since
siderable reduction in temperature. Even in wind tun- there were some 10'" particles per cubic centimeter, the
nels operating at transonic and low supersonic speeds, possible existence of stable foreign particles was dis-
the lower temperature may lead to the condensation of missed and the effect of the presence of water vapor
the water vapor present in the air stream with result- was studied. The water content was varied from about
ing modification of the forces experienced by models 1 part in a million to 1 part in 2,000. Measurements of
being tested. To avoid this condensation, supersonic particle radius and number of particles per unit vol-
wind tunnels are equipped with air dryers to reduce ume indicated no effect until the water vapor content
greatly the amount of water present. reached 1 part in 2,500.
When the Mach number becomes of the order of 7 Attention is now directed to carbon dioxide as the
to 10, the temperature is sufficiently low to lead to probable source of the condensation nuclei, since meas-
condensation of the oxygen and nitrogen in the air. urements showed this gas to be present at a volume
One method of alleviating the difficulty is to preheat concentration of about 1 part in 10,000 and to remain
the tunnel supply air above atmospheric temperatures. fairly constant throughout long periods of time. Re-
In order to design intelligently a hypersonic wind tun- sults on effects of varying the carbon dioxide content
nel, it is necessary to know much more than we do are not yet available.
now about condensation phenomena. According to some Research in aeronautics owes a great debt to physics
theories, condensation might not occur if the traverse not only for the development of many tools for its own
time of air through the low temperature region were research which find application in aeronautical research,
sufficiently short. All theories require the presence of but also for rich resources of physical principles from
condensation nuclei. What are the nuclei responsible for which ingenious men may draw to devise methods of
condensation in hypersonic wind tunnels? Does con- measuring almost any physical quantity under the most
densation occur at the saturation temperature or is varied circumstances. Hypersonic wind tunnels present
some degree of supersaturation possible? These are the many instrumentation problems in which physics has
questions which physicists are asked to answer. come to the rescue. For Mach numbers in excess of 5
Some recent progress has been made in this field by the conventional type of pressure-measuring equipment
Williams and McClellan of the NACA Langley Labo- is no longer adequate. Recourse has therefore been
ratory working in an 11-inch hypersonic wind tunnel. made to McLeod gages. In the NACA Ames 10- by 14-
The presence of condensation was first inferred from inch hypersonic wind tunnel (Fig. 5) a battery of 40
surveys to show the variation of pressure as a function of these gages has been mounted on a manometer
of inlet air temperature, and later confirmation was ob- board to facilitate the measurement of 40 pressures at
tained by a simple light-scattering technique illustrated the same time by the adjustment of one common sump.
in Fig. 4. The first experiments indicated a large degree In this way the pressure distributions may be photo-
of supersaturation. The equipment was then refined to graphed in much the same manner as they are on a
make possible measurements of the amount of light conventional U-tube manometer board. The low pres-
scattered at given angles and the amount of light ab- sures are also accompanied by low densities, requiring
sorbed by a volume element at various points along the the use of long wave length X-ray apparatus rather
axis of the stream. From these measurements the par- than the interferometer to determine densities in flow
ticle size and the number of particles per unit volume fields about models.
MAY 1952
Oiftuser
18 Test section
Nozzle
mmsm Centrifugal
evacuotors l;if. 5. The NACA
Ames 10- by 14-Incli
Hypersonic Wind Tun-
\ nel.
Vacuum pumps
The Goal of Higher Altitude The thick shock wave is typical of low-density flows.
The physicist's torsion balance has been adapted to
PERATION at ever higher altitudes is a second measure drag forces of the order of one milligram. The
aim of the aircraft designer, and efforts to in- speed of flow has been measured by ionizing a small
crease operating altitude also bring many problems in "lump" of air and electronically timing its travel be-
physics. Missiles have already penetrated to extreme tween two electrodes spaced a known distance apart.
altitudes. If the altitude becomes sufficiently high, air One of the first investigations in this low-density wind
can no longer be considered as a continuous medium. tunnel is described in NACA Technical Note 2244 by
The mean free path of the molecules becomes com- Stalder, Goodwin, and Creager under the title "A Com-
parable with characteristic lengths of the flow, for parison of Theory and Experiment for High-Speed
example boundary layer thickness or shock wave thick- Free-Molecule Flow."
ness. Slip flow will occur at the boundary as the pres-
sure is reduced and ultimately the molecular interac- Speed-Altitude Survey
tion with the boundary must be considered. At very
low pressures the gas may be considered as a stream
of free molecules, to which the classical mathematical N UMEROUS ATTEMPTS have been made to clas-
sify the aerodynamic problems associated with
theory developed by Maxwell, Knudsen, Smoluchowski, the entire range of speed, altitude, and vehicle size, and
Boltzmann, and others may be applied. Slip flows may to map the boundaries between regions in which Rey-
be attacked theoretically by the methods of Chapman nolds number, Mach number, and Knudsen number
and Cowling, Schamberg, and others, which apply to are in turn the predominant controlling parameter.
slightly rarefied gases. Such boundaries are not at all sharp and depend on
At the NACA Ames Laboratory, the University of the body shape. There are wide regions in which the
California at Berkeley, and at other laboratories physi- influences of two or all three of the parameters are
cists are engaged in the experimental exploration of comparable.
low density flows. The Ames low-density wind tunnel When the Mach number is small (less than 0.5) and
uses a type of oil-diffusion pump developed in connec- the Knudsen number is small (less than 10~3), the con-
tion with the atomic bomb program. The pressure- trolling parameter determining the nature of the flow
measuring instrumentation consists of several types of VD
gages, McLeod, Pirani, and ion gages, which were de- field is the Reynolds number R = - , V being the
/"•
veloped and first used in physics laboratories. The flow speed, D a linear dimension fixing the scale, p the den-
visualization method used is a direct result of the work sity, and p the viscosity of the fluid. Thus for a circu-
of Dr. Joseph Kaplan of the University of California lar cylinder, if the Reynolds number is unity or less,
at Los Angeles on the afterglow of excited nitrogen gas. the inertia forces are small compared to the viscous
The intensity of the luminescence which persists for an forces, and we have the type of flow known as "creep-
appreciable time after nitrogen is electrically excited to ing" flow. As the Reynolds number is increased, the
states capable of emitting light increases with increas- viscous effect becomes concentrated in a thin laminar
ing density. This phenomenon can be used at low den- boundary layer and elsewhere in the field the inertia
sity to give the same general picture of shock-wave lo- forces predominate. When the Reynolds number reaches
cation and density variation as is given by schlieren about 500,000, the laminar boundary layer becomes
apparatus at higher density. Fig. 6 shows the flow about turbulent before separation and the flow field assumes
a 30° wedge at Mach number 2 and 140 microns of a different configuration. When the Mach number is
mercury stagnation pressure obtained by this method. increased to supersonic values, the same phenomena
PHYSICS TODAY
Fi>. 7. Boundaries between
Various Aerodynamic Regimes.
Sec text for explanation.
MAY 1952 19
20
of compressors and turbines, to fuels and to their com- roles in the ignition and combustion processes must be
bustion in high speed air streams at rates far exceed- determined both experimentally and theoretically.
ing those present in other industrial devices and at As an example of a new problem for the physicist
very low pressures, to materials for use at tempera- arising in engine development, we may take the fluctua-
tures up to 3500° F, to heat transfer and cooling, to tions in the spray pattern formed by two impinging
friction and high speed bearings, and to controls, sens- jets, described in greater detail by Heidmann and
ing devices for speed, pressure and temperature, and Humphrey of the NACA Lewis Laboratory in NACA
servomechanisms. Technical Note 2349. The combustion process in rocket
As a typical example, development work on com- engines has, under certain operating conditions, ex-
bustors emphasizes the importance of understanding hibited a state of instability, characterized by sustained
the fundamental nature of initiation and propagation oscillations in combustion chamber pressure and thrust
of flames. Some of the problems under study at the at frequencies that vary from approximately 20 up to
NACA Lewis Laboratory and to which physicists might several thousand cycles per second. The low frequency
well devote greater attention are described in the fol- oscillations may be due to resonance in a circuit where
lowing paragraphs. the propellant feed system and the rocket chamber are
A knowledge of the minimum spark ignition energies dynamically coupled. Instability at high frequencies ap-
associated with a wide range of fuel-to-air mass ratios, pears to be associated with the injection and mixing
pressures, temperatures, and other variables is essential process. It was found that when two jets of water im-
to the successful design and operation of ramjet and pinged, a ruffled sheet of liquid was formed with waves
turbojet engines. A program of research is now under perpendicular to the plane of the two jets. The liquid
way to: sheet disintegrated intermittently, forming groups of
(a) measure the minimum spark ignition energies as- drops, which appeared as waves propagating from the
sociated with a quiescent gaseous fuel and air mixture point where the two jets meet. The wave length and
under varying conditions of temperature, pressure, fuel- spacing were variable in random fashion about average
to-air ratio, molecular fuel type, and geometrical con- values but the frequency was approximately constant
figuration of the ignition bomb; over short periods of time at values between 1,000 and
(b) measure the minimum ignition energies associ- 4,000 cycles per second for the range of test condi-
ated with a gaseous fuel and air mixture flowing irro- tions. It appeared that the ruffling of the liquid sheet
tationally past the ignition source, study the effect of persisted to the point of disintegration of the sheet
the variables previously listed; and determined the frequency of the wave formation.
(c) measure the minimum spark ignition energies as- Irregularities in the jets before impingement may be as
sociated with a fuel and air mixture in turbulent flow, instrumental in controlling the ruffling of the liquid
with studies of the effects of the variables previously sheet as is the friction of the air. Here is a problem to
listed; be explored more fully by physicists.
(d) interpret the data in the light of existent theo- One aspect of jet engine fuel performance of great
ries, and to formulate a theory consistent with the practical interest is its tendency to form carbon de-
ignition data as well as with data from allied branches posits in the combustor. A completely satisfactory ex-
of the combustion field. The exact nature of the igni- planation of the carbon formation mechanism in flames
tion process as well as the full meaning of "ignition has yet to be given. If the fundamental molecular proc-
energy" is still a challenge to the physicist. esses giving rise to sooty flames were fully understood,
The maximum thrust available from a jet engine is a significant step towards the improvement of jet en-
closely related to the maximum fundamental flame gine performance and longevity would be possible. Fun-
speed associated with a given fuel and air system. One damental studies of various types of flames are under
technique employed for measuring flame speed utilizes way, with spectroscopic and photographic techniques be-
two photocells, each giving a narrowly collimated view ing employed to obtain data concerning the gross physi-
of a transparent cylindrical flame tube, to turn an elec- cal as well as the molecular properties in the various
tronic counter on and off respectively (Gerstein, Levine, regions of the flames. The role of additives in the sup-
and Wong in Journal of the American Chemical So- pression of carbon formation is also being considered.
ciety, vol. 73, pp. 418, 1951). This yields the time dur- The basic principles of physics are continually uti-
ing the traverse of a known distance by the flame front. lized in the study of lubrication, friction, and wear of
Many problems of instrumentation, interpretation of bearings and gears. Damage to the surfaces of the bear-
data in terms of the geometry of the apparatus and ings and gears is usually more important than the mag-
the aerodynamics and kinetics of the situation are being nitude of the friction. The physical and chemical con-
and remain to be attacked by the physicist. ditions at the surface are of utmost importance in de-
In a liquid-fuel rocket, ignition is obtained spontane- termining the type of surface damage, whether smooth
ously when two fluid jets (fuel and oxidant) contact sliding, shearing of low-shear-strength surface films, or
each other. Assurance of this continuous ignition proc- severe surface adhesion or even welding. Surface films
ess in a rocket combustor depends upon a great multi- of thickness of a few millionths to ten-thousandths of
tude of physical and chemical factors whose individual an inch often form naturally and are of great practical
PHYSICS TODAY
21
importance. X-ray and electron diffraction techniques A few examples in this field will illustrate the role of
are used to measure lattice parameters and hence chemi- physics. The property of greatest interest at high tem-
cal composition as well as to detect the presence of pre- perature is creep, yielding of the material at constant
ferred orientation of the molecular constituents. " load. The electron diffraction technique has been ap-
In the propulsion field, a great variety of physical plied to the study of the effect of surface films on the
principles are applied to special experimental tech- creep of a metal crystal. Fig. 8 shows a plot of elonga-
niques. Thus Bundy, Strong, and Gregg of the General tion vs. time for a single crystal of zinc and corre-
Electric Company {Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 22, sponding electron diffraction patterns, first for the crys-
August 1951) combined interferometry and spectros- tal with a surface film of oxide, and then with surface
copy to measure the velocity and pressure of gases in film removed by acid.
a rocket flame. The method was based on the Doppler Aeronautical engineers are greatly interested in prog-
shift of wave length of the sodium or lithium spectral ress in the physics of solids as throwing light on the
radiation from the flame when viewed at different an- mechanisms of plastic flow and creep. The aircraft, en-
gles relative to the flame axis. gine, or missle designer is interested in establishing the
An interesting recent development by Warshawsky relation between stress and strain under polyaxial stress
and Shepard of the NACA Lewis Laboratory is an air- conditions as a function of previous history of loading
cooled thermocouple which can be used to measure and time. Various phenomenological approaches have
temperatures above the melting point of the thermo- been made by applied mathematicians and engineers.
couple material. Three thermocouple junctions are em- The physicist can contribute by investigating the plastic
ployed at the middle and ends of a horizontal wire be- behavior of metals on the basis of the microscopic proc-
tween two supports, the hot gas flow being normal to esses that take place within metallic grains deforming
the wire. The hollow supports are cooled by an air plastically. One of his goals then becomes the synthesis
stream to keep the wire at a temperature well below of a stress-strain relation on the basis of these ele-
the melting point of the material, the heat from the mentary processes; ultimately the physical approach
center being conducted along the thermocouple wire to and the phenomenological approach may be expected
the other junctions located at the cooler supports. In- to yield a common end product.
creased gas temperature requires a higher cooling air- Batdorf and Budiansky (NACA Technical Note
flow rate and a greater temperature difference between 1871) of the NACA Langley Laboratory proposed a
the central junction and the supports. Hence this tem- slip theory derived from physical considerations. The
perature difference is a measure of gas temperature at assumption was made that plastic deformation is due
a fixed Mach number and pressure. wholly to slip along crystallographic planes of indi-
vidual metal crystals, that slip is caused by shear stress
Aircraft Materials and Structures only, that the magnitude of the slip depends upon the
magnitude of the stress, and that the slip of a par-
A T EXTREMELY HIGH SPEEDS aerodynamic ticular crystal is not influenced by that of neighboring
•**• heating will increase temperatures to the point crystals. The plastic deformation of the material as a
where the commonly used materials lose a large per- whole is then considered to be given by the cumulative
centage of their strength. Likewise the introduction of effect of the slip that has occurred in all of the crystals.
thin wings and unusual plan forms yields more flexible While the experimental checks of the theory have given
structures with interactions between structural defor-
mation and aerodynamic loads. Vibration and flutter
ELONGATION
problems become more severe. New materials must be
sought and potentially available materials such as the
stainless steels and titanium alloys must be thoroughly
exploited and evaluated. Thermal insulation and cool-
ing of the structure become possible methods of at-
tack on the design problem.
In engine materials, the field of high-temperature
alloys is of special significance. During the last war,
American manufacturers turned out 257,000 piston en-
gines for airplanes in a single year. If the present emer-
gency were to worsen to the point where even 100,000
of the higher-powered jet engines had to be built an-
nually, it would be necessary to cut down on the
amounts of the strategic materials, columbium, cobalt,
tungsten, chromium, and nickel used in their manufac-
ture. This problem is under vigorous attack and physi-
cists play an important role in alloy development and
TIME
evaluation and in the study of alternate methods of
frig. S. Influence of Surface Layer
dealing with the problem such as turbine blade cooling. on Creep of Single Crystal of Zinc.
MAY 1952
22
PHYSICS TODAY
23
of reducing the noise reaching the ground from light lished a basis for the study of the possible reduction of
air planes in order to remove an objection to the con- propeller noise. The major factor is the tip speed of
struction of small airports in or near residential areas. the propeller and the only known method of large re-
Since then the increasing speed and power of transport duction of propeller noise is to reduce the tip speed.
aircraft and the development of still higher-powered Supersonic propellers, though extremely noisy, give less
jet airplanes have focused attention on the aircraft noise than would be estimated by extrapolation of the
noise problem more generally. The principal sources of data at lower tip speeds. In any practical case reduc-
airplane noise are the engine exhaust and the propeller, tion of tip speed requires increasing the number of
and little improvement can be made unless both sources blades, decreasing the propeller diameter as much as
are attacked. possible, and decreasing rotational speed. Gearing to
To reduce exhaust noise requires the development of the engine may be required with considerable weight
suitable mufflers. Limitations on weight, size, and tol- penalty and possibly decreased performance of the air-
erable engine power loss are much more stringent for craft in takeoff and climb. Reasonable compromises
airplane mufflers than for the automobile mufflers cus- have been demonstrated {NACA Technical Note 2079)
tomarily designed by cut-and-try methods. The prob- for small light airplanes, but it does not as yet seem
lem was attacked by Davis, Stevens, and Moore of the feasible or safe to apply the same measures to large
NACA Langley Laboratory, on the basis of the modern high-powered aircraft. Much more research and de-
acoustics theory of the physicists, using the filter theo- velopment is required.
ries of Stewart and Mason. For mufflers of a size suit- The basic physical data on the spectrum and direc-
able for light airplanes the filter elements may be tional characteristics of propellers and jets are avail-
treated as lumped impedances while wave propagation able. Thus Fig. 10 shows a typical spectrum of the
theory is applied to the main duct connecting the ele- noise from a propeller, showing the periodic character
ments. For larger mufflers the wave theory must be of the noise and the concentration of the energy at
used for the filter elements as well. Excessive sound the harmonic frequencies of the fundamental. By con-
pressures reduce the attenuation below the value com- trast the typical spectrum of the noise from a jet en-
puted by linear theory, and for the larger mufflers gine shows the completely random character of the
which would be required for engines of transport air- noise and the absence of spectral lines. For the pro-
craft, the wave propagation is governed by a nonlinear peller the noise is maximum in the plane of the pro-
differential equation. While successful mufflers appear peller; for the jet the maximum is at a moderate angle
feasible for small low-powered aircraft, a satisfactory to the axis of the jet.
solution for the higher-powered engines has not yet From such data the noise levels to be expected under
been obtained. A report on this work is in preparation. various circumstances can be predicted for points both
The sound spectrum and spatial distribution of pro- inside and outside the airplane. With present knowledge
peller noise may be determined theoretically for the the engineer can only inform the general public that all
case of a rotating propeller on an aircraft at rest high-powered sources of energy make a great deal of
(NACA Technical Memorandum 1195). The propeller noise, and that the known effective measures for re-
is represented by a ring of acoustic doublets whose ducing or isolating the noise in the neighborhood of
strength is directly proportional to the torque and such a source are much too heavy to be used on air-
thrust of the propeller. This theory and confirmatory craft. The only certain method of reduction is more
measurements (NACA Technical Note 1354) has estab- distance between the source and the observer. Both
MAY 1952
24
PHYSICS TODAY kf