A preliminary study of the vectoring performance of a synthetic jet actuator with slot edge curvature

Jet vectoring is one promising aspect among the various utilities of synthetic jet. A primary jet could be either pulled or pushed by the actuation of a synthetic jet nearby. In the pull mode, the downstream development of the synthetic jet may adversely affect the vectoring due to the strong streamwise momentum. Since the development of the synthetic jet is determined by the rolling up of the vortices at the actuator slot edge which in turn depend on the edge curvature, this study investigates the effect of the edge curvature on the formation of the synthetic jet and the vectoring of a primary jet. The edge curvature is found to have great influence on the flow separation and the consequent evolution of the vortices. Synthetic jet is not able to form when both edges are curved. The different curvatures also result in varied flow structures in between the primary and synthetic jets, leading to different vectoring behaviors.