Subsonic cavity flow control with Micro-Magneto-Mechanical Systems microvalves

Flow control consists in modifying a flow natural state in order to converge towards another state which is considered as favorable, as drag or noise radiation might be reduced. In this paper, open-loop flow control experiments are carried out on a subsonic open-cavity flow. In the case of unstable flow control, the control focus is brought onto the flow fluctuations modifications rather than modification of the mean flow properties. Therefore, the forcing flexibility using arbitrary signals and the forcing linearity are essential for such flow control cases. In that sense, a linear array of Micro Magneto-Electro-Mechanical Systems actuators has been implemented to perform open-loop flow control experiments on an open-cavity. The actuators are able to generate both quasi-steady and pulsed jets with linear behavior. We proved the microvalves efficiency to damp the cavity oscillations. The quasi-steady jets reached a reduction of 20 dB in the cavity fundamental amplitude sound pressure level. Pulsed jets enabled an additional cavity tone amplitude reduction, which depends on the pulsating frequency and on the forcing amplitude. These results are a first step towards the implementation of the closed-loop control of the open-cavity flow.