• Dr. Seongkyu Lee
  • GE Global Research
  • 3100 Torgersen Hall
  • 5:00 p.m.
  • Faculty Host: Dr. William Devenport

This seminar presents recent research activities about wind turbine blade aeroacoustics and numerical predictions for acoustic scattering. Wind power capacity has expanded rapidly to 336 GW in June 2014, and wind energy production is around 4% of total worldwide electricity usage, and growing rapidly. As the number of wind turbines increases, they are being located closer to business and residential areas that may have various laws and regulations restricting noise levels. This seminar presents the issues and research opportunities for wind turbine noise. A main aerodynamic noise source of wind turbine blades is the blade trailing edge noise which is generated by scattering by a sharp trailing edge of the pressure fluctuations in the turbulent boundary layer. This seminar presents a design approach to mitigate this noise by modifying the trailing edge geometry to reduce the scattering effect. A new time-domain acoustic scattering solver and analytic formulations of the pressure gradient are presented. In the acoustic scattering solver, equivalent point sources are embedded inside the scattering body, and the strength of the sources is determined by matching the boundary condition on the surface. Acoustic scattering of broadband and impulsive noise is presented. Acoustic scattering of BO105 helicopter noise by a fuselage is also predicted and validated with NASA’s Fast Scattering Code. Finally, future research plans and potential collaborative opportunities are discussed.

Biography:

Dr. Seongkyu Lee is a lead mechanical engineer at Aerodynamics and Acoustics Lab, General Electric (GE) Global Research Center in New York. Dr. Lee joined GE Global Research as mechanical engineer in 2010 after a post-doctoral scholar position at the Pennsylvania State University. Recently, Dr. Lee took a position of Advanced Design Tool program manager at GE Global Research, and he leads the development of new technology tools including CFD and aeroacoustic tools and he manages over 10 million dollar projects. Dr. Lee has extensive research experiences in wind energy, turbomachinery, and rotorcraft aeroacoustics. Dr. Lee’s research experiences at GE include wind turbine blade CFD and aeroacoustics, far-field sound propagation, aircraft engine and propeller noise predictions, and propulsion-airframe aeroacoustic integration. Dr. Lee has led a global team of researchers to design innovative low-noise wind turbine operations. Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor degree in Acoustics Graduate Program in 2009 from the Pennsylvania State University where he worked on theoretical and computational aeroacoustics for rotorcraft noise, acoustic scattering, and nonlinear sound propagation. He is a member of AIAA and AHS.