Characterization of high speed synthetic jet actuators

Abstract

Altering the clamping conditions, at which the disks are clamped, showed that increasing the number of clamping points where the disks are clamped, improved the performance of the jet. Coupling this with a flexible clamping boundary condition yielded the best performing jets. Fatigue tests were conducted for both apparatuses using several different disk designs. These tests showed that there is a degradation of the disks that causes the jet performance to decay and eventually cause a fracture in the disk. It is apparent from this work that, though the conditions at which the disks are manufactured have a small effect on performance, the disks do exhibit a threshold where beyond it the performance decays. Though desired jet velocities and momentums are achievable, the abnormality of the disks needs to be addressed before applying the actuator to practical situations. As this research continues, the synthetic jet actuator will become more robust and reliable to be an effective and reliable source of active flow control.

Over the last 20 years, synthetic jets have been studied as a means for aerodynamic active flow control. Specifically, synthetic jets provide momentum transfer with zero-net mass flux, which has been proven to be effective for controlling flow fields. A synthetic jet is created by the periodic formation of vortex rings at its orifice due to the periodic motion of a piezoelectric disk(s). The present study seeks to optimize the performance of a synthetic jet actuator by utilizing different geometrical parameters such as disk thickness, orifice width and length, cavity height and cavity diameter, and different input parameters such as driving voltage and frequency. Two apparatuses were used with a cavity diameter of either 80 mm or 160 mm. Piezoelectric-based disks were provided by the Midé Corporation. Experiments were conducted using several synthetic jet apparatuses designed for various geometrical parameters utilizing a dual disk configuration. Velocity and temperature measurements were acquired at the center of the synthetic jet orifice using a temperature compensated hotwire and thermocouple probe. The disk(s) displacement was measured at the center of the disk with a laser displacement sensor.

It was shown that the synthetic jets, having the 80 mm cavity diameter, are capable of exceeding peak velocities of 200 m/s with a relatively large orifice of dimensions AR = 12, h*c = 3, and h*n = 4. In addition, the conditions at which the disks were manufactured had minimal effect on the performance of the jet, except for the pair with overnight resting time as opposed to less than an hour resting time for the control units. Altering the tab style of the disks, where the tab allows the electrical circuit to be exposed for external power connection, showed that a thin fragile tab versus a tab of the same thickness as the disk has minimal effect on the performance but affects the durability of the disk due to the fragility or robustness of the tab. The synthetic jets, having a 160 mm cavity diameter, yielded jet velocities greater than 300 m/s.