A study of the heat transfer processes and related flows of a synthetic jet impinging perpendicular to a heated surface

Abstract

To maintain the development of modern technology and its thermally intensive processes, versatile methods of enhancing localised heat transfer are continually required. This need has resulted in an on-going drive to achieve greater levels of heat dissipation through the implementation of active and passive cooling technologies. Many of these techniques aim to dissipate heat by either supplying the thermally saturated area with an ever increasing volume of cooler fluid or by using a form of turbulence enhancement to disrupt the thermal boundary layer. One of the most promising technologies of this type is the synthetic jet. It has been shown that this technology can provide significant levels of heat transfer enhancement without many of the penalties which hamper other methods of cooling such as scalability, complexity, power consumption and cost. While the synthetic jet's ability to provide cooling has been documented to some degree, a more in-depth investigation into the turbulent mechanisms and their influence on heat transfer is required.