Acoustic far field Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
The acoustic far field is the radiation region where the observer is many reduced wavelengths from the source and far compared with its geometric extent. Three-dimensional outgoing acoustic density perturbations spread as ; two-dimensional harmonic fields spread as . The condition is independent of the acoustic compact-source approximation . Differentiating a retarded phase produces the radiating part of a Green function integral; derivatives of the spreading factor produce near-field terms.
Acoustic quadrupole 2026-10-06
An acoustic quadrupole has forcing . The acoustic compact-source approximation reduces its leading far-field density to in three dimensions, with evaluated at retarded time.
Acoustic thickness noise 2026-10-07
Thickness noise is the sound generated by displacement of fluid by a moving impermeable body, represented by the surface acoustic monopole term. For a rigid body, , so its leading acoustic compact-source approximation has no net-volume monopole. Its local source need not vanish: a moving finite-volume body can radiate through higher spatial moments. A thin-body or negligible-volume approximation is needed when all such radiation is to be omitted.
For a fixed impermeable object, the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation has a volume acoustic quadrupole and a surface acoustic dipole, with no mass-injection term. If is the total force exerted on the fluid and the integrated Lighthill stress tensor, the acoustic compact-source approximation in the acoustic far field gives the displayed pressure at retarded time. A force convention directed onto the body reverses the loading sign. The retarded acoustic Green function carries when the wave operator is .
Use the conservative continuity equation and momentum balance, with the viscous stress:
Differentiate the first equation in time and take the divergence of the second. Eliminating momentum gives
Subtract , and define the Lighthill stress tensor by
The constant reference subtraction has no double divergence. The exact Lighthill acoustic analogy is
This is an exact rearrangement; linearization is not used to eliminate the nonlinear source tensor.
Convolving with the retarded acoustic Green function and transferring the source derivatives by integration by parts gives
The acoustic compact-source approximation requires source size to satisfy for its characteristic frequency ; the acoustic far field additionally requires and . Internal retardation is then negligible at leading order, and the radiating parts of the two observer derivatives act on the common retarded time. With and , the far-field acoustic force and stress moments give
The two spatial derivatives supply two factors of , in addition to the in the Green function.
For a subsonic fluctuating source of velocity scale , size and turnover time , suppose its stress scale is . Then and . The compact acoustic quadrupole Mach-number scaling is therefore
This fourth-power statement concerns the acoustic density amplitude under the specified eddy-time and stress scaling. With an independently imposed frequency, the general estimate instead retains .
With a mass source, the continuity equation becomes . If the conservative momentum equation has no added source, repeating the elimination gives the mass-injection term in the acoustic analogy:
More generally, injection can carry momentum. If its momentum source is , the additional term is ; prescribing alone does not determine this dipole contribution. The displayed monopole formula assumes no separately imposed momentum source.
Let be the total mass rate. Convolution with the retarded acoustic Green function, followed by the acoustic compact-source approximation, gives the extra acoustic monopole
The stress quadrupole from the preceding part remains present. If required, a compact injected momentum rate adds the dipole .
A small pulsating bubble displaces liquid with volume flux and acts acoustically like a mass rate . Spherical symmetry makes this a monopole, with
For volume oscillation , the density amplitude is . At fixed volume-displacement amplitude, it scales as . Holding volume-flux amplitude fixed would instead give an scaling. The bubble must remain small compared with the wavelength, and a frequency-dependent dynamical bubble amplitude is a separate effect.
Interpret the surface delta as , so integration against it gives a surface integral. If is signed distance, this equals the notation directly. This convention is needed because an arbitrary rescaling of the level-set function must not change the physical source.
Define the volume flux and total pressure force . Here is the rate of change of body volume, not the volume itself. The surface acoustic monopole contributes, in the acoustic compact-source approximation,
The surface acoustic dipole contributes
The second term is a nonradiating near-field term and is smaller in the acoustic far field. Writing with the observation point fixed, the leading augmentation is therefore
The printed dipole coefficient is missing a factor . The extra inverse speed follows from differentiating , and is required dimensionally: the printed expression with has the units of density times speed. This corrected acoustic loading noise term also agrees with the far-field acoustic force and stress moments. The monopole coefficient is unchanged.
Convolution with the retarded acoustic Green function, followed by two integrations by parts in the source coordinate, yields
For the acoustic compact-source approximation, replace the distance and the source retarded time by and in the leading moment. Thus the integral is , where . In the acoustic far field, each spatial derivative acts predominantly on retarded time: , where . Derivatives of and of give lower powers of . The two retarded derivatives therefore give
This is the compact acoustic quadrupole field, retaining its angular stress projection.
For the compact acoustic quadrupole Mach-number scaling, let the source length be , typical fluctuation speed be , and typical time be . The low-Mach number stress is , so and . Consequently
With the geometric ratio separated, this is the stated fourth-power dependence. It assumes an advective source time scale and compactness . An externally driven source with an independent frequency does not acquire the same Mach power automatically.
Put , , and take a compactly supported Lighthill stress tensor. The isotropic term in that tensor is : the Kronecker delta is implicit in the printed shorthand. Convolving the Lighthill acoustic analogy with the retarded acoustic Green function and integrating twice by parts in the source coordinates gives
The boundary terms vanish because of compact support. For source size , the acoustic compact-source approximation requires . At , we may therefore replace the denominator by and the retarded argument by in the leading source integral. Define . In the radiation region , the leading two spatial derivatives act on the retarded time rather than on or :
Thus the leading acoustic quadrupole density is
For the compact acoustic quadrupole Mach-number scaling, let be the source fluctuation speed, , and use the advective source time . With , one has and . Consequently
The fourth power refers to the radiation coefficient with geometric spreading separated. It assumes that the source frequency scales as ; an independently imposed frequency or an independently strong thermal source would change that Mach number estimate.
Let use the Heaviside step function, and , so that points from the body into the fluid. The kinematic boundary condition gives on the surface. In the exterior, mass conservation and the Euler equations for an inviscid fluid are
Products with are understood distributionally, using and . With , the extended continuity equation is
The corresponding extended momentum equation is
because its advective surface term is . Differentiate continuity in time and substitute the divergence of momentum. Subtracting gives the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation
where the inviscid Lighthill stress tensor is
If denotes total pressure, this tensor includes the constant ambient pressure . Its contribution cancels the corresponding surface term exactly. For radiation integrals it is convenient to subtract from both terms, making with . The displayed source identity is unchanged by this consistent pressure-gauge subtraction.
Assume no incoming sound and no free initial acoustic field. Put , , , and . Convolution with the retarded acoustic Green function gives the three source integrals, for an observer outside the body:
These are the surface thickness, surface loading and volume quadrupole contributions. The retarded surface Dirac delta distributions must remain inside the integrals: integrating them over a moving retarded surface produces the moving-surface retarded Jacobian, and is not generally the same as simply substituting one retarded time into an instantaneous surface integral.
For an acoustic compact-source approximation, suppose the dominant sources have size , source frequency scale , and . Also require and the acoustic far field . Then , , and the leading source integrals use the common time . Slow source motion relative to is implicit in this leading retardation approximation. Define
Thus is net displaced mass per unit time, is the fluid pressure force on the body, and is the integrated excess Lighthill stress tensor. The minus sign in fixes the requested loading convention; the force on the fluid is opposite. On the radiating terms, , giving
Spatial derivatives of produce near-field terms of orders and , omitted here. Neglecting source delays is a separate approximation from discarding those observer near-field terms. If a leading integrated source vanishes by symmetry, its first nonzero delay correction can be as important as another retained multipole.
For the translating sphere, write its center as , with a unit vector, and its velocity as . Let , and . Impermeability gives . Since its volume is constant,
in the leading compact formula. The individual local thickness sources have scale , but their net monopole cancels.
At first order in amplitude and leading order in , the exterior incompressible velocity potential is , where is measured from the mean center. It has at . Linear Bernoulli equation gives there. Since ,
This is the added mass of a sphere. The explicit leading loading contribution is
It scales as . In homentropic small-amplitude flow the volume stress is quadratic to leading order, over volume , so the volume acoustic quadrupole has scale
It is smaller than the linear dipole by and can contain a second harmonic.
For completeness, the exact thickness-source integral has a nonzero first delay correction even though . Its first spatial moment is
Expand its integrand at . The leading nonzero translating-sphere acoustic thickness dipole is therefore
It too scales as . Thus zero net-volume monopole does not mean zero thickness radiation. The full leading linear sound, summing thickness and loading, is
The leading compact equation gives the requested zero and added-mass terms; this extra delay calculation is necessary to obtain the complete linear field when its nominal monopole has cancelled.
Let the fluid approach a uniform, quiescent state at infinity. Use the outward unit normal vector , pointing from the object into the fluid. Write for the Heaviside step function, , and . With the viscous stress tensor , define
Thus is the Lighthill stress tensor, and is the surface loading exerted on the fluid. The total force on the object has the opposite sign. Extend by zero inside the object. Since the boundary is fixed and impermeable, , and the distributional mass conservation and momentum conservation equations are
For example, the surface contribution to the momentum equation is . Differentiating the first equation in time and subtracting the divergence of the second gives the fixed-body Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation:
There is no acoustic thickness noise: a fixed impermeable boundary injects no mass. Apply the retarded acoustic Green function , where . The supplied surface-delta identity converts the loading term to a surface integral. For an exterior observer, the required integral equation is
This acoustic analogy is an exact rearrangement of the fluid equations; source approximations enter later. In the distant linear acoustic region, .
The acoustic far field requires observer distance much larger than the source extent and , so derivatives of the retarded phase dominate derivatives of . The acoustic compact-source approximation requires , so the source's differential propagation delays can be neglected. These conditions concern different lengths and neither implies the other. Put , , and define the loading and stress moments
The leading compact acoustic far field is
The surface term is an acoustic dipole; the volume term is an acoustic quadrupole. The plus sign of the loading term follows from the minus sign of its spatial divergence and the derivative of retarded time.
For the power comparison, assume low Mach number , high Reynolds number, eddy size , characteristic time , and stress magnitude . Keep the prescribed turbulent region and its leading volume stress comparable when inserting the object; neglect changes of source statistics and exceptional cancellations of the leading moments. Compactness follows from . Since and the outgoing acoustic intensity is , the volume power is
If the object's size is comparable to and its fluctuating resultant loading is , then
Angular factors and dimensionless loading coefficients have been omitted. The acoustic dipole and acoustic quadrupole interference vanishes in the leading power integrated over a full sphere, by odd angular parity; individual directions can show interference.
A size threshold also requires a loading model. For a small nonseparating object of size in an approximately inviscid, smoothly varying incident eddy, a spatially uniform pressure has zero resultant on its closed surface. The first surviving loading is the pressure-gradient or added mass force, . Under these explicitly stated assumptions,
The two mechanisms become comparable at ; for smaller objects the cases with and without the object have the same leading order of power. This is the small-body loading-noise threshold. It is not a geometry-independent size law: a separated drag force fluctuating on the original eddy time instead gives and . If both force and time are set by body-scale eddies, , their loading power is and comparison with the original volume source gives . Each estimate states which source time and force it uses.
The physical distinction is momentum conservation. Unforced turbulence in a fluid supplies internal stresses, whose net-force contribution cancels and leaves acoustic quadrupole radiation. The supported object exchanges momentum with the fluid and the external support, permitting a time-dependent resultant force and acoustic dipole radiation. One fewer retarded derivative makes the loading radiation more efficient at low Mach number.
In the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation, the other source types are a surface acoustic monopole associated with acoustic thickness noise, and a volume acoustic quadrupole involving the Lighthill stress tensor. On an impermeable material surface, fluid and surface normal velocities agree. There is no through-surface mass-flux source; the remaining thickness source is . For a rigid body, the leading acoustic compact-source approximation to that source has
Thus there is no leading net-volume acoustic monopole. To neglect thickness radiation beyond that leading cancellation, assume negligible volume displacement, as for ideal thin blades, or that its higher multipoles are small compared with the retained acoustic loading noise. Rigidity alone does not make a moving finite-volume body's local thickness source identically zero.
The volume acoustic quadrupole may be neglected for low Mach number motion when exterior turbulent or nonlinear stresses do not provide a competing strong source. We also assume small linear acoustics perturbations, a uniform reference sound speed, and negligible relevant viscous and entropy sources. These are source-strength approximations, particularly important if a loading contribution itself cancels by symmetry. Under them, the retained acoustic dipole is the force exerted by the object on the fluid, with the sign used in the previous solution.
Let , , and . In the acoustic far field, is large compared with the object and . For a source of size with and small surface Mach number, source-dependent delays and the Doppler factor can be neglected to leading order. The surface integral then contains just the total force . Differentiating its retarded time, rather than its spreading factor, gives the radiating term
The sign follows from . Differentiating or the direction instead produces the lower-order near field. A constant total force does not radiate at this leading compact order.
The rotation introduces angular frequency and, after combining the two blades, harmonics such as . The acoustic compact-source approximation requires the propagation time to be small compared with . Thus
It also bounds every blade element's Mach number by . Consequently , and its leading value is one. The separate acoustic far field condition is .
Choose the positive rotation sense so that a first blade at phase has radial and tangential unit vectors
Integrating the given line force from to yields . Its axial component is constant, while . Since , the compact acoustic dipole sound from this blade is
The other blade has phase and contributes the opposite rotating force. At a common compact retarded time, their total force is , so
This cancellation calls for the next source-delay correction; it does not mean that the complete moving-source field vanishes.
Use complex amplitudes with time dependence , so the outgoing two-dimensional Helmholtz equation kernel has phase . Dividing the harmonic form of Lighthill acoustic analogy by and integrating the two source derivatives by parts gives an amplitude proportional to
Only the magnitude is needed here; the specified kernel omits its constant phase and normalization. In the acoustic compact-source approximation, . With , hence , the two-dimensional compact quadrupole scaling is
The half-power difference from three dimensions comes from cylindrical spreading, including its factor. As in part (i), the Mach number power is stated with the geometrical range factor separated; is still required.
Let , , and let the source have size . The retarded acoustic Green function gives the outgoing solution of Lighthill acoustic analogy as
This follows by integrating the source derivatives by parts in the retarded convolution. Assume the source is localized and the boundary terms vanish. In the acoustic compact-source approximation, , the retardation across the source can be neglected, while permits replacement of the denominator by . The integral becomes .
In the radiation region , derivatives of the retarded argument dominate derivatives of the spreading factor. Since , the leading acoustic quadrupole field is
The two negative retardation derivatives give a positive sign. This is a far-field approximation, with smaller near-field terms omitted.
For low-Mach number aerodynamic fluctuations of speed and advective time , take , , and two time derivatives of order . Therefore
The quoted fourth power is the compact acoustic quadrupole Mach-number scaling, with geometric spreading shown explicitly. It assumes the source strength and time scale just stated; the source must be acoustically compact, and the observation point must remain in the radiation region.