Study the orifice effects of a synthetic jet actuator design

Abstract

The synthetic jet actuator is an active flow control device that is used to improve the aerodynamic performance on working surfaces such as wings, helicopter blades and ground vehicles. The performance of synthetic jet actuator depends on the design of the orifice and cavity, and the oscillating driver. Piezoelectric diaphragm was used as an oscillating driver because of its small size and easier installation. The focus of this project is to study the effects of orifice size and shape for a synthetic jet actuator design. The effects were studied on circular and rectangular shapes, and different sizes of orifice. Meanwhile, the configurations of the cavity are fixed. Experiments were performed to determine the maximum pulse jet velocity and turbulence intensities of the jet coming out of the orifice, driven by the Piezoelectric diaphragm at different frequencies, at constant input voltage of 2V. The experiment mainly involved the measurement of the exit pulse jet velocity using a hot-wire anemometer. The results demonstrated that the circular orifice produced higher maximum pulse jet velocity and smaller sizes orifices, both circular and rectangular, results in higher velocity jets.