If it rolls or flies, UC research is working to keep it quiet

August 14th, 2012
UC's Jeff Kastner researches noise reduction of sophisticated military jet engines. Credit: Dottie Stover, University of Cincinnati
from noise reduction in sophisticated military jets to quieter car rides – will be presented at INTER-NOISE 2012, the 41st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, to be held Aug. 19-22 in New York City. UC is among only a few universities with a specific focus on vehicle noise control.

The UC research to be presented at INTER-NOISE:

UC innovations to reduce the noise of the nation's most sophisticated military aircraft. Jeff Kastner, research assistant professor in the UC College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), will present on UC discoveries that use chevrons and fluidic injection to reduce supersonic jet noise.

UC research featuring a mathematical model for quick-response, noise-cancellation designed to minimize sudden and unexpected noise caused by road hazards – bumps or potholes for example. A significant step in countering such unexpected roadway noises is the development of an adaptive, active algorithm that would enable the deployment of a rapid-response sound wave that would counter and, in effect, significantly "erase" the perceived road noise heard within the car's cabin when the auto unexpectedly hits a roadway obstacle like a pothole or bump. This development will be presented by UC engineering doctoral student Guohua Sun.

UC researchers, led by Mingfeng Li, research associate in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science, have developed a mathematical model to reduce noise over a wide range of frequencies. Every noise has its own sound wave frequency. When multiple noises are combined, their different frequencies join together and form a group. These groupings, called clusters of harmonic responses, can be found in a number of mechanical applications like vehicle powertrains, gear vibration and rotating machinery. Making clusters of harmonic responses quieter is far more difficult than individual noises that have a single sound frequency, and it is the issue of noise clusters that is being addressed by this research.

UC mechanical engineering doctoral student Wael Elwali is conducting research focused in the areas of mechanical vibration and vibro-acoustics and noise control engineering. Although the concepts of noise control and vibro-acoustics have been around for quite some time, the type of noise control research Elwali is conducting is still in its computational and modeling stages, and UC is among the few universities exploring this field.

Provided by University of Cincinnati

This Phys.org Science News Wire page contains a press release issued by an organization mentioned above and is provided to you “as is” with little or no review from Phys.Org staff.

More news stories

Temporal processing in the olfactory system

The neural machinery underlying our olfactory sense continues to be an enigma for neuroscience. A recent review in Neuron seeks to expand traditional ideas about how neurons in the olfactory bulb might encode information about ...

US seizes Bitcoin operator accounts

US authorities seized the accounts of a Bitcoin digital currency exchange operator, claiming it was functioning as an "unlicensed money service business," court documents showed Friday.

Chinese, Indian airlines face EU pollution fines

Eight Chinese and two Indian airlines face fines of up to several million euros for not paying for their greenhouse gas emissions during flights within the bloc, the European Commission said on Friday.