Effects of the stroke length and nozzle-to-plate distance on synthetic jet impingement heat transfer

This study focuses on the combined effect of the nozzle-to-plate distance and of the stroke length on the cooling performances of impinging synthetic jets. Infrared thermography is used as temperature transducer in conjunction with the heated thin foil heat transfer. All the experiments have been performed at a fixed Reynolds number equal to 5250, while different values of the dimensionless stroke length and nozzle-to-plate distance have been considered. At high L0/D, the heat transfer behaviour resembles that of a continuous impinging jet. It is characterized by a time-averaged stagnation Nusselt number maximum between H/D equal to 4 and 6 and inner and outer ring-shaped regions of Nusselt number maximum at short H/D. These two regions are replaced by a bell-shaped distribution at higher nozzle-to-plate distances. At short H/D, the heat transfer evolution reveals the simultaneous presence of two outer ring-shaped regions. The external outer region is ascribed to the strong coherence of the primary vortex ring, while the internal one is mainly due to the vortex rings generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability along the trailing jet shear layer. At high H/D, the internal outer-ring shaped region disappears because of the weakening of the trailing jet Kelvin–Helmholtz vortex rings.