Jet sweeping angle control by fluidic oscillators with master-slave designs

The fluidic oscillator is an instrument that can continuously generate a spatially sweeping jet entirely based on its internal geometry without any moving parts. However, the traditional fluidic oscillator has an inherent limitation, that is, the spreading angle cannot be controlled independently, rather by the jet volume flow rate and internal geometry. Accordingly, two types of fluidic oscillators based on the master-slave design are developed in current study to decouple this correlation. In both designs, the master layer inherits the similar oscillation mechanisms of a sweeping jet, and the slave layer resembles a steady jet channel. The difference between the two designs is that Design A has a short diverging exit in the slave layer, but Design B adds a long interaction chamber in the exit channel to intensify flow instability. The external flow fields and governing oscillation properties of these two designs are experimentally explored with time-resolved Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), while the internal flow dynamics and driving oscillation mechanisms are numerically investigated. By fixing the total volume flow rate, the jet spreading angle of Design A can be increased smoothly from 0° to above 100° by increasing the proportion of master layer's flow rate from 0 to 100%. For Design B, the control authority of the master layer is significantly enhanced by adding the interaction chamber in the slave layer. In addition, the added chamber causes notable jet oscillation even when the master layer has none input.