Myles Mackie
MIT Department: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Faculty Mentor: Prof. Wesley Harris
Undergraduate Institution: Howard University
Hometown: New Orleans, Louisana
Website: LinkedIn
Biography
Myles Mackie is a rising senior Mechanical Engineering student at Howard University. Growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, Myles had an early affinity for STEM, gravitating towards math, design, and robotics in grade school. Deciding to attend Howard University as a Karsh STEM Scholar, Myles made a commitment to pursuing a PhD and has been matriculating through his undergraduate degree focused on engineering research. Outside of class, Myles spends his time creating and consuming art and music, as well as playing a variety of sports for leisure. In previous internships, Myles researched the effects of free stream turbulence on low speed airfoils at DEVCOM Army Research Labs, and he designed a user interface for NASA’s Perseverance at NASA’s JPL in 2023. This summer, he is working in AeroAstro under Dr. Wes Harris to reduce propeller noise in electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft for applications in urban air mobility.
Abstract
Tonal and Broadband Noise Reduction of Propellers for UAM eVTOL vehicles
Myles Mackie1, Wesley Harris2
1Howard University, Department of Mechanical Engineering
2Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The development of electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing vehicles (eVTOLs) for urban air mobility (UAM) is driven by the trend towards emission-free transportation and the desire to circumvent heavy traffic in densely populated areas. The two greatest barriers in eVTOL development for these applications are noise and power supply. Noise is primarily generated by the rotors that drive flight, and power supply is limited by the energy density of modern batteries. Aircraft in this sector utilize a variety of different rotor/propeller configurations, each with different design characteristics. This research takes one of them, the tandem tilt-wing, and characterizes the noise generated in cruise flight by a single rotor. The goal of this research is to examine the effects of propeller pitch and airfoil shape have on the noise generated by individual propellers. A 4 bladed propeller with a solidity of 0.1 is considered for this experiment. NACA 0012, 0006, 4412, and 2412 airfoil shapes and two blade twist configurations are analyzed under three RPMs at cruise atmospheric conditions to determine the effects of these parameters on the overall sound pressure level (OASPL, dB) at various distances from the rotor. The data is obtained computationally, computed using PSU-WOPWOP, an acoustics software that uses Farassat’s Formulation 1A of the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings equation to compute tonal noise, and the Brooks, Pope, and Marcolini self-noise model for broadband noise calculations. It’s hypothesized that the reduction of blade thickness will lead to a slight reduction in thickness noise contributing to the OASPL, but any potential benefits may be negligible in the far field. The highest pitch propellers in this experiment are expected to be the quietest because the rotor with a pitch to circumference ratio closest to the advance ratios tested will in theory cause the least disturbance to the incoming flow. If this experiment is successful in reducing OASPL in the far field, further tests will need to be conducted to examine the thrust efficiency and structural integrity of the modified rotors.
