Investigation of piezoelectrically generated synthetic jet flow

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the compressible turbulent synthetic jet flow characteristics of a dual diaphragm piezoelectric actuator. Experimentally, a flow visualization system was established to obtain the particle streak images scattered from 10-μm red fluorescent spheres for observing the synthetic jet flowfield produced by a dual diaphragm piezo actuator. The centerline velocity of the synthetic jet was also measured by using a hot-wire anemometry system. In the analysis, the computational approach adopted the transient three-dimensional conservation equations of mass and momentum with the moving boundary specified to represent the piezo diaphragm motion. The standard k-∈ two-equation turbulent model was employed for turbulence closure. For the actuator operating at the frequency of 648 Hz, the particle streakline images in the cross-sectional plane visualized a turbulent jet flow pattern in the far-field area. The hot-wire anemometry data indicated that the measured centerline velocity of synthetic jets reached 3.8 m/s at y/d= 50. The predictions were compared with the visualized particle streak images and centerline velocity of the synthetic jet in order to validate the computer code. The numerical simulation revealed the time-periodic formation and advection of discrete vortex pairs. Caused by the outward movement of the piezo diaphragms, air near the orifice was entrained into the actuator cavity when the vortex pairs were sufficiently distant from the orifice.