An Affordable Acoustic Measurement Campaign for Early Prototyping Applied to Electric Ducted Fan Units

New innovative green concepts in electrified vertical take-off and landing vehicles are currently emerging as a revolution in urban mobility going into the third dimension (vertically). The high population density of cities makes the market share highly attractive while posing an extraordinary challenge in terms of community acceptance due to the increasing and possibly noisier commuter traffic. In addition to passenger transport, package deliveries to customers by drones may enter the market. The new challenges associated with this increasing transportation need in urban, rural, and populated areas pose challenges for established companies and startups to deliver low-noise emission products. The article’s objective is to revisit the benefits and drawbacks of an affordable acoustic measurement campaign focused on early prototyping. In the very early phase of product development, available resources are often considerably limited. With this in mind, this article discusses the sound power results using the enveloping surface method in a typically available low-reflection room with a reflecting floor according to DIN EN ISO 3744:2011-02. The method is applied to a subsonic electric ducted fan (EDF) unit of a 1:2 scaled electrified vertical take-off and landing vehicle. The results show that considerable information at low costs can be gained for the early prototyping stage, despite this easy-to-use, easy-to-realize, and non-fine-tuned measurement setup. Furthermore, the limitations and improvements to a possible experimental setup are presented to discuss a potentially more ideal measurement environment. Measurements at discrete operating points and transient measurements across the total operating range were conducted to provide complete information on the EDF’s acoustic behavior. The rotor-self noise and the rotor–stator interaction were identified as primary tonal sound sources, along with the highest broadband noise sources located on the rotor. Based on engineering experience, a first acoustic improvement treatment was also quantified with a sound power level reduction of 4 dB(A). In conclusion, the presented method is a beneficial first measurement campaign to quantify the acoustic properties of an electric ducted fan unit under minimal resources in a reasonable time of several weeks when starting from scratch