Patent ID: 7478764

Claim:
A fluidic oscillator that operates on a pressurized liquid flowing through said oscillator to generate an exhaust flow in the form of a spray of liquid droplets into a surrounding gaseous environment, said oscillator comprising: an inlet for said pressurized liquid, an outlet from which said exhaust flows, a channel connecting said inlet and outlet and having a floor, sidewalls and a centerline, a throat situated at a point between said inlet and outlet and formed by the converging of said channel sidewalls, a barrier located proximate said throat and rising from said channel floor so as to divide said channel in the region of said barrier into what are herein defined as two power nozzles, each of said power nozzles having a furtherest downstream portion whose cross section is characterized by a herein defined length L and the herein defined angle ζ that a centerline projecting normal to said cross section makes with said channel centerline, wherein said barrier having a specified width that is characterized by the herein defined length B between the furtherest downstream portions of said barrier, an interaction recess on the downstream side of said barrier and proximate said throat that is characterized by a herein defined depth T, an expansion section formed by said channel sidewalls diverging downstream of said throat, with the furtherest downstream portions of said expansion section sidewalls forming said oscillator outlet, wherein said expansion section characterized by a herein defined downstream length S and the herein defined angle ψ that said expansion section sidewalls make with said channel centerline, wherein said oscillator is configured so as to control the lateral rate of spread of said liquid droplets from said oscillator by specifying the parameters L, B, ζ, T, S and ψ.