Cabin Noise Control in Distributed-Propulsion Aircraft Using Fuselage-Integrated Piezoelectric Actuators

The paper deals with the development of a multidisciplinary numerical tool for the abatement of cabin noise for Distributed Propulsion (DP) configurations by means of fuselage-integrated piezoelectric actuators. The control law for the piezoelectric patch actuation is obtained through an LQR approach applied to an aeroacoustoelastic model which accounts for the shell dynamics, the interior acoustics, and the propagation outside the fuselage of the pressure disturbance induced by the propellers. A Genetic Programming algorithm is exploited to evaluate the optimal position of the actuators and the weight of the LQR algorithm. The test cases analysed and compared consist of three DP configurations differing in terms of number of propellers and varying the number of actuators used. The results confirm the effectiveness of the actuators in obtaining a significant reduction in terms of cabin noise, up to about 10 dB.