Applied Sciences (Feb 2021)

Impact of the Sub-Grid Scale Turbulence Model in Aeroacoustic Simulation of Human Voice

  • Martin Lasota,
  • Petr Šidlof,
  • Manfred Kaltenbacher,
  • Stefan Schoder

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app11041970
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 4
p. 1970

Abstract

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In an aeroacoustic simulation of human voice production, the effect of the sub-grid scale (SGS) model on the acoustic spectrum was investigated. In the first step, incompressible airflow in a 3D model of larynx with vocal folds undergoing prescribed two-degree-of-freedom oscillation was simulated by laminar and Large-Eddy Simulations (LES), using the One-Equation and Wall-Adaptive Local-Eddy (WALE) SGS models. Second, the aeroacoustic sources and the sound propagation in a domain composed of the larynx and vocal tract were computed by the Perturbed Convective Wave Equation (PCWE) for vowels [u:] and [i:]. The results show that the SGS model has a significant impact not only on the flow field, but also on the spectrum of the sound sampled 1 cm downstream of the lips. With the WALE model, which is known to handle the near-wall and high-shear regions more precisely, the simulations predict significantly higher peak volumetric flow rates of air than those of the One-Equation model, only slightly lower than the laminar simulation. The usage of the WALE SGS model also results in higher sound pressure levels of the higher harmonic frequencies.

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