Development of Pulsed Jet Actuator for Power Efficient Actuation Concepts Testing

The paper presents development and testing of Pulsed Jet Actuator system for active separation flow control at small scale wind tunnel tests. The aim of the work was to control of duty cycle and pulsation frequency for each slot in PJA array integrated in WT model. For this purpose, a system of high-performance electromagnetic valves with real time control was built. The PJA nozzle geometry design was supported by Computational Fluid Dynamics study in order to achieve high momentum flux at the actuator’s rectangular blowing slot required for separation flow control. The system performance tests comprised: Constant Temperature Anemometry investigations, high frequency pressure measurements, supply air mass flow rate and pressure measurements and valve temperature measurements. The results showed that pulsation of the jet with Mach number changing from 0.01 to 0.9 with frequencies up to 250 Hz was achieved. It has been found that the duty cycle can be controlled with millisecond resolution. The developed system will be used for developing and testing of power efficient actuator concepts for separation flow control requiring very low actuation energy.