Novel Fluidic Oscillator Evaluation Considering Dimensional Modifications

Abstract

Although flow mixing and cooling can be greatly enhanced when considering the use of fluidic oscillators (FOs), they are more commonly employed in active flow control (AFC) applications where the injected pulsating flow interacts with the boundary layer, usually in order to delay its separation. In fact, prior to any FO implementation in a given application, it is essential to study the range of frequencies and amplitudes it can generate as a function of the incoming mass flow and its dimensions. This is what is being performed in the present manuscript for a rather novel FO configuration. A numerical study of a standard three-dimensional (3D) FO configuration, and also using a two-dimensional (2D) approach, is initially presented. After comparing the 3D and the 2D results and analyzing the main differences, we modified some of the internal dimensions of the FO in order to evaluate the variation in its dynamic performance. The present results clarify which internal dimensional modifications are more effective in generating larger output frequencies and velocity field variations. Care is taken to analyze the origin of self-sustained oscillations. This paper links, for the first time, the origin of the pressure force oscillations at the feedback channel’s outlet, with the interaction of the mixing chamber central jet and the reverse feedback channel flow at the mixing chamber’s converging walls. A novel equation relating the FO outlet mass flow frequency with the time-averaged FC reverse flow is presented and discussed. In fact, the present study needs to be seen as the continuation of a former one, recently published by authors, where the effects of several Reynolds numbers as well as some different internal dimensions were considered.

Keywords

• fluidic oscillator design
• computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
• flow control
• feedback channel performance
• turbulence modeling