Open Access

ARTICLE

Numerical Investigation of Aeroacoustic Response of an Oscillating-Wing Power Extractor

A. R. Shanmugam, Ki Sun Park^*

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

* Corresponding Author: Ki Sun Park. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Biomimetic Wing Aerodynamics: Insights, Analysis, and Engineering Applications)

Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing 2026, 22(7), 9 https://doi.org/10.32604/fdmp.2026.086164

Received 25 May 2026; Accepted 23 July 2026; Issue published 31 July 2026

Abstract

Oscillating-wing power extractors (OWPEs) are an alternative to rotary wind turbines for small- and medium-scale renewable energy applications. However, the aeroacoustic response of such systems remains largely unexplored. In this study, the power extraction performance and near-field aeroacoustic characteristics of an OWPE are numerically investigated using transient computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations coupled with the Ffowcs Williams–Hawkings (FW–H) acoustic model at a Reynolds number Re of 8.58 × 10⁴. Two important operating parameters, namely the pitching amplitude θ_o and reduced frequency f*, are varied systematically, and the corresponding near-field sound pressure level (SPL) is measured at 20 receiver locations surrounding the OWPE. The results show that the reduced frequency f* has a strong influence on the near-field overall sound pressure level (OSPL), whereas the effect of pitching amplitude is comparatively less significant. Increasing the reduced frequency broadens the acoustic spectrum and increases the predicted near-field acoustic levels, while the acoustic response remains dominated by low-frequency components. Flow-field analysis reveals that the formation, growth, and shedding of the leading-edge vortex (LEV) strongly influence both the power extraction performance and the near-field aeroacoustic characteristics. The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS)-based multi-criteria analysis identified θ_o = 80° and f* = 0.16 as the optimal operating condition, providing the best compromise between power extraction and near-field acoustic levels.

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Keywords

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