Masterclass with Professor Francesco Avallone

The Sustainable Sound Futures CDT Masterclass series has been arranged by the CDT students, to hear from leading acoustics researchers from academia and industry, learn from their expertise and ask questions. The masterclasses are online, free and open to everyone; please register for each masterclass via the link below.

Towards predicting the impact of drone noise during urban operations

Predicting drone noise during urban operations is challenging because of the complex flow environment, which is often characterized by gusts, and the manoeuvres the drone executes such as varying propeller rotational speed and changes of orientation axis. In this talk, he will describe how they coupled mid and high-fidelity numerical methods, validated against numerical simulations, to data analysis approaches to make a first step to assess how drone noise during operation can be perceived.

Professor Francesco Avallone (Politecnico di Torino)

Francesco Avallone has been Full Professor of Fluid Dynamics in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) at the Politecnico di Torino since 2023. Before moving to Torino, he spent seven years at Delft University of Technology, first as a postdoctoral researcher and then as a tenured Assistant Professor, and he remains a guest researcher there. He received his MSc in Aerospace Engineering and his PhD from the University of Naples Federico II, with a doctoral thesis on non-intrusive measurement techniques for boundary-layer transition in hypersonic flows.

Since 2015 his research has focused on aeroacoustics. He works both on understanding how flows generate noise and on developing new noise-reduction technologies, using experiments and high-fidelity simulations. His main topics are airfoil self-noise, rotor and drone noise, fan and HVAC noise, and acoustic liners. Acoustic liners are the subject of his ERC Starting Grant LINING (2022).

He has authored or co-authored more than 100 journal articles and 100 conference papers, is co-inventor on three patents, and co-founded the start-up MuTech and is Scientific Coordinator of ITEC IS4Aerospace.