Aerospace Engineering Seminar Series: "Rotorcraft Noise: Past, Present and Future” - Bhaskar Mukherjee

Abstract: Rotor noise remains a major barrier to commercializing helicopters and emerging electric multirotor aircraft, often prompting curfews and flight caps. Accurate noise prediction has strong commercial value: it guides design trade-offs and helps operators and airports manage community exposure. High-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is widely used for rotor-noise prediction in steady operating conditions (e.g., hover), but real operations are unsteady; matching what communities hear requires time-accurate simulations over hundreds of revolutions—too expensive for CFD in practice. Mid-fidelity methods offer a better accuracy-to-cost balance, making maneuver noise prediction practical. As these models become faster and more accurate, new applications are emerging beyond community noise assessment. In autonomous operations, acoustics can complement vision and other sensors, adding cues that improve situational awareness and safety in shared airspace.

Speaker Bio: Bhaskar Mukherjee earned his PhD in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State, specializing in rotorcraft aeroacoustics, aerodynamics, and flight simulation. His dissertation developed mid-fidelity tools to predict noise from emerging electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and helicopters. He received the Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Graduate Research Award for applying these methods to assess community noise around New York City heliports, considering both current helicopter operations and the potential introduction of eVTOL vehicles. He continues this work at Penn State, extending his research into new applications in aircraft safety and autonomy.