Behavior of Plane Synthetic Jets Generated by an Asymmetric Stepped Slot

Abstract

This paper presents a fundamental study of jet directional control, i.e., thrust vectoring, using a synthetic jet generated by an asymmetric stepped slot. We present and discuss the results for a synthetic jet generated by a one-sided asymmetric stepped slot and focus on the relationship between the traveling direction of the formed jet and the offset ratio of the stepped slot and/or dimensionless frequency of the synthetic jet, within a jet deflection angle range of 0–90°. We demonstrate that there is an optimum offset ratio for jet deflection under the same dimensionless frequency because the traveling direction of the synthetic jet is dependent on the offset ratio of the stepped slot and the dimensionless stroke length (dimensionless frequency).