Finite difference computation of acoustic scattering by small surface inhomogeneities and discontinuities

• Authors: Christopher K. W. Tam;Hongbin Ju
• Venue: Journal of Computational Physics
• Year: 2009

The use of finite difference schemes to compute the scattering of acoustic waves by surfaces made up of different materials with sharp surface discontinuities at the joints would, invariably, result in the generations of spurious reflected waves of numerical origin. Spurious scattered waves are produced even if a high-order scheme capable of resolving and supporting the propagation of the incident wave is used. This problem is of practical importance in jet engine duct acoustic computation. In this work, the basic reason for the generation of spurious numerical waves is first examined. It is known that when the governing partial differential equations of acoustics are discretized, one should only use the long waves of the computational scheme to represent or simulate the physical waves. The short waves of the computational scheme have entirely different propagation characteristics. They are the spurious numerical waves. A method by which high wave number components (short waves) in the wave scattering process is intentionally removed so as to minimize the scattering of spurious numerical waves is proposed. This method is implemented in several examples from computational aeroacoustics to illustrate its effectiveness, accuracy and efficiency. This method is also employed to compute the scattering of acoustic waves by scatterers, such as rigid wall acoustic liner splices, with width smaller than the computational mesh size. Good results are obtained when comparing with computed results using much smaller mesh size. The method is further extended for applications to computations of acoustic wave reflection and scattering by very small surface inhomogeneities with simple geometries.