problem of sound radiation from an unflanged duct with mean flow of the medium taking into account existence of all allowable wave modes and, in particular, occurrence of the so-called unstable wave, which results in decay of radiation on and in vicinity of the duct axis. The flow is assumed to be uniform with the source of flow located inside the duct, which is the case frequently occurring in industrial systems. Mathematical considerations, accounting for multimodal and multifrequency excitation and diffraction at the duct outlet, are based on the model of the semi-infinite unflanged hard duct with flow. In the experimental set-up a fan, mounted inside the duct served as the source of flow and noise at the same time modelled as an array of uncorrelated sources of broadband noise, what led to the axisymmetrical shape of the sound pressure directivity characteristics. The theoretical analysis was carried out for the root mean square acoustic pressure in the far-field conditions. Experimental results are presented in the form of the measured pressure directivity characteristics obtained for uniform flow directed inwards and outwards the duct compared to this observed for the zero-flow case. The directivity was measured in one-third octave bands throughout five octaves (500 Hz - 16 kHz) which, for a duct with radius of 0.08 m, corresponds to the range 0.74-23.65 in the reduced frequency ka (Helmholtz number) domain. The results obtained are consistent with theoretical solutions presented by Munt and Savkar, according to whom the weakening of the on-axis and close-to-axis radiation should take place in the presence of medium flow. Experimental results of the present paper indicate that this effect is observed even for the Mach number as low as 0.036.

The Neumann boundary value problem for the Helmholtz equation within the quarter-space has been considered in this paper. The Green function has been used to find the acoustic pressure amplitude as the approximation valid within the Fraun-hoffer's zone for some time-harmonic steady state processes. The low fluid loading has been assumed and the acoustic attenuation has been neglected. It has also been assumed that the vibration velocity of the acoustic particles is small as compared with the sound velocity in the gaseous medium.

Numerical methods are mostly used to predict the acoustic pressure inside duct systems. In this paper, the development of a numerical method based on the convected Helmholtz equation to compute the acoustic pressure inside an axisymmetric duct is presented. A validation of the proposed method was done by a comparison with the analytical formulation for simple cases of hard wall and lined ducts. The effect of the flow on the acoustic pressure inside these ducts was then evaluated by computing this field with different Mach numbers.