Scaling procedures of cabin noise generated by turbulent boundary layer excitation

This paper presents a new method for measuring the cabin noise of a structure in a wind tunnel. A method for scaling the cabin sound was derived to obtain the cabin noise of a structure, and the derivation of the scaling procedure was based on a theoretical hypothesis regarding the cabin noise prediction for a scaled model in a wind tunnel. A frequency offset was generated because of the error introduced by model manufacture and installation, and a proposed modal test method was used to eliminate the frequency offset. Both a full-scale structure and scaled structure were measured in the wind tunnel tests. The cabin noise of the full-scale model was compared with the results obtained using the scaling procedure based on the scaled model. The comparisons of the measurement results indicate that the scaling procedures developed in this paper are effective for vibro-acoustic predictions in wind tunnels. Moreover, background noise tended to affect the results of the cabin sound for the wind tunnel test, and thus background noise should be prevented through specific design efforts.