The Effect of Curved Geometry on Exiting Flow of Fluidic Oscillators

Traditionally fluidic oscillators are designed to be planar. However, there are applications that may desire the exiting fluid to move in the third dimension. This could allow these oscillators to be more effective in applications such as fuel sprays, cooling flow, or flow control devices with its increase in effective spray area. This investigation designed a series of oscillators that curved the whole body and/or the exit nozzle to understand how to maximize out of plane motion. These configurations were compared to a baseline planar oscillator with no curved characteristics. Velocities were measured downstream of these oscillators within a data collection grid using a hot wire probe to determine the 3D shape of the exiting jet. Results show that configurations with only one of the two curved physical characteristics (i.e., only a curved body or a curved nozzle) produced the most curvature. Having both of the curved physical characteristics caused the nozzle width to decrease causing the axial spacing to decrease. Additionally, these curved exiting flows were only seen at mass flow rates below 40 standard liters per minute (SLPM). Higher mass flow rates caused the exiting flow to flatten, returning the flow to the baseline result of in-plane oscillations. This led to a decrease in jet spread.