Numerical Investigation of Controlling Separated Cascade Flow Using Synthetic Jet

Abstract

*† Numerical Analysis of active control using synthetic jet on the massive separation in an unconventional axial stator-rotor arrangement is presented in the investigation. The synthetic jet is 1mm wide and is located on the stator blade where the flow separates otherwise. The dimensionless velocity of the synthetic jet is 0.97 referring to the incoming flow. Two-dimensional RANS equations with a modified k-e turbulence model are employed. Computational results show that without flow control, the stator blades suffer massive separation and the rotor flow has unsteady separation regions. However, the flow structure can be effectively regularized using the synthetic jet. The massive separation on the stators can be transformed into a series of separation bubbles while the rotor flow remains fully attached, when a synthetic jet of 120Hz is introduced into the flow system. The turbulence is successfully suppressed and the flow loss considerably reduced. The encouraging results indicate that the synthetic jet can also be efficient in controlling the massive separation in cascade flow.