Enhancing Jet Velocity and Power Conversion Efficiency of Piezoelectric Synthetic Jet Actuators
Baris Gungordu, Mark Jabbal, Atanas A. Popov
Abstract
The present work discusses an experimental investigation into the effect of piezoceramic employed to drive a synthetic jet actuator into a quiescent flow. The electromechanical coupling ratio of polycrystalline piezoceramics, lead zirconate–titanate 5A/5H (PZT-5A/5H), conventionally used in synthetic jet actuators, is inherently low. Therefore, this study aims to investigate using more electromechanically efficient piezoceramics, such as single-crystal, lead magnesium niobate–lead titanate (PMN-PT). In addition, two different orifice-diaphragm configurations of synthetic jet actuators, opposite and adjacent, are tested. It is identified that PMN-PT piezoceramic promotes three times higher transverse diaphragm displacement and two times more peak jet velocity compared to the PZT-5A piezoelectric actuator for the same input diaphragm voltage. A peak exit jet velocity of [Formula: see text] was obtained at 40 V of peak supply voltage, which can be classified as a low voltage supply compared to other studies in the literature that obtained similar exit jet velocity. Also, a power conversion efficiency of 72% was achieved, corresponding to the Helmholtz resonance frequency. A new figure-of-merit, momentum coefficient per power consumption, is defined to evaluate the potential impact for full-scale implementation. A state-of-the-art value of [Formula: see text] is achieved.