Experimental and numerical analysis of buffeting phenomena and its influence on

Confined flow configurations are encountered in a wide variety of applications, such as car underbodies and ventilation systems in vehicles and buildings. Within these systems, flow detachment typically occurs due to obstacles in the flow and variations of the geometry. Because of the typically light-weight design of the confining structure, these phenomena can lead to large amplitude structure vibrations. This in turn can cause excessive noise radiation towards, for example, a car cavity. Conventional solutions to tackle these issues rely on bulky damping layers or heavy additions, which compromise the light-weight design. Innovative solutions such as metamaterials could offer a more performant light-weight solution for these flow-induced noise and vibration problems, but accurate modeling strategies are needed to drive their design. Flow-induced noise and vibration phenomena are the results of complex interactions between the aerodynamics, the acoustic field on both sides of the confining structure, and the dynamics of this structure. Due to the large disparity of length and energy scales relevant to the problem, direct numerical modeling of these interactions would result in a prohibitive computational cost. This Ph.D. project, therefore, leverages upon an in-house solver for the linearized Navier-Stokes equations (based on a high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretization) and structural Finite Element models, to develop an accurate prediction tool for flow-induced vibrations and their effect on far-field noise radiation. Dedicated measurements on a selected use case, subject to buffeting phenomena, will be carried out to provide an experimental aerodynamic and acoustic database for the validation of (non-)linear simulation frameworks for the prediction of aero- and vibro-acoustic noise generation mechanism.