Dr Elias Arcondoulis

• Acoustic beamforming
• Passive flow and noise control
• Porous materials
• Water-wave structure interaction

Intelligent Beamforming for Acoustic Source Localisation in Complex Flows

The accurate localisation of noise sources in aeroacoustic environments remains a major challenge for aircraft, wind-energy, and urban sound studies. Conventional beamforming methods struggle to resolve distributed or broadband sources, particularly at low frequencies and in the presence of strong flow-structure interactions.

This research programme develops and validates new adaptive and data-driven beamforming frameworks that dramatically enhance acoustic source imaging fidelity. Novel array-design algorithms such as the Adaptive Array Reduction Method (AARM) and Array Pairing Method (APM) optimise microphone placement and pairing to minimise sidelobes and main-lobe distortion, generating sharper and more realistic source maps. These physical-model approaches are now being integrated with deep neural network architectures, capable of learning nonlinear source patterns from experimental datasets. Future work will extend these techniques to aeroacoustic sources in anechoic wind-tunnel environments, and to hybrid optical–acoustic imaging of distributed flow-induced noise.

Structured porous breakwaters to protect UK coastlines from the effects of climate change

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/breakwaters/

Sea-level rise and more frequent and intense storms are impacting coastal communities, with coastal flooding, erosion and damage to infrastructure. Novel breakwater designs have the potential to increase the resilience of UK coastlines to these climate change related events. The aim of this project is to develop a design methodology and pilot test a breakwater designed using structured porous media (SPM) that can perform as a breakwater while significantly reducing harmful environmental impacts. An interdisciplinary approach will be employed, involving the Schools of Mathematics, Geographical Sciences and Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering. Analytical models of micro-scale fluid mechanics around regularly spaced pores will be developed to calculate pressure losses, transmitted and reflected wave energy onto and through SPM interfaces. These models will be validated via a pilot test of an SPM-breakwater in a water flume, using local coastal wave data as inputs for wave energy.