An Experimental Investigation Of Sweeping Jets Impinging Flow Field: Effects Of Nozzle-To-Plate Distance And Feedback Channel Minimum Cross-Sectional Area
Authors: D'Angelo Cristina , Greco Carlo Salvatore , Paolillo Gerardo , Cardone Gennaro , Astarita Tommaso 
Published: July 2024

Without requiring any moving part or piezoelectrical elements, fluidic oscillators are actuators able to convert a steady jet into an oscillating one, only due to internal fluid dynamic mechanisms. Since the oscillations of such jets are self-induced and self-sustained, the interest in fluidic oscillators has grown over the last years, especially for film cooling, flow control and heat transfer applications. The oscillation frequency, the sweeping angle and the flow field characteristics of sweeping jets greatly depend on various geometric and fluid dynamic parameters. Therefore, in the current work, through the application of the planar PIV technique, the effects of nozzle-to-plate distance and feedback channel minimum cross-sectional area on the external flow field of impinging sweeping jets are investigated. Non-dimensional nozzle-to-plate distances H/w equal to 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are taken into account, being w the exit nozzle throat section width. To analyze the effects of the feedback channel minimum cross-sectional area, a fluidic oscillator having a mixing chamber length Lf/w = 4.5 is provided with threaded holes in correspondence of the feedback channels, in which a micrometric screw is fastened to vary the parameter g/w, being g the feedback channel minimum passage width; values of g/w equal to 0.17, 0.33, 0.50, 0.67 and 1 are considered. Time-averaged and phase-averaged analyses are performed; indeed, the pressure signal measured between the inlet and outlet sections of one feedback channel is used to identify the phase of each velocity snapshot, despite the velocity measurements are not time-resolved. Firstly, the configuration with g/w=1 is taken as reference case, thus analyzing the nozzle-to-plate distance effect. The phase-averaged velocity and fluctuating kinetic energy fields show that the jet sweeps in the external flow field, with a sweeping angle approximately equal to 25° and a frequency of 50 Hz. Due to this behavior, the time-averaged velocity field exhibits a twin-jet pattern, which can also be identified from the time-averaged Phase-correlated Kinetic Energy (PKE) distributions (see Figure 1, left). Indeed, the extreme positions of the oscillating motion are the zones in which the coherent oscillation of the velocity values is greater and, therefore, the PKE values are the greatest. Furthermore, while at H/w=2 the jet sweeps in an almost rigid-like way between the two extreme positions reached during its oscillating motion, at greater nozzle-to-plate distances a phase delay between the motion of the jet near the impinging plate and near the exit nozzle section can be observed. Considering the effects of the feedback channel minimum cross-sectional area, by reducing g/w the sweeping angle of the jet decreases, while the oscillation frequency increases. Still, a twin-jet pattern can be identified for g/w≥0.33, as it can be seen from the crosswise profiles of the dimensionless time-averaged axial velocity (see Figure 1, right), while for g/w=0.17 a single-jet velocity structure can be identified. Nevertheless, as g/w decreases the maximum values of the velocity increase while the oscillation intensity decreases, resulting in a decrease of the PKE values.