Further examination of the mechanism of round synthetic jets in delaying turbulent flow separation

This paper reports the findings from a further study of the 2D and stereo PIV data obtained in the interaction zone between the separated turbulent boundary layer over a 2D ramp and round synthetic jets by the authors. The synthetic jets are operated at two actuation frequencies with one being close to the natural frequency of the separated shear layer. Both the triple decomposition technique and Q-criterion are employed to investigate how the separated flow responds to the passage of different parts of the vortical structures produced by the synthetic jets during an actuation cycle at different synthetic jet operating conditions. An attempt is made to explain the observed differences in the ways that the separated flow responds to the actuation of synthetic jets at the two actuation frequencies. A better understanding of the mechanism of flow separation delay using round synthetic jets is obtained, leading to a more complete physical model describing the interaction mechanism. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.