A Comparative Study of Three Eddy-Viscosity Turbulence Models Applicable to an Unsteady Synthetic Jet

The present study encompasses the numerical simulation of a versatile phenomenon, known as a synthetic jet, which has captivated so much attention due to its dominant capability of active flow control and separation delay. Flow coming out of a synthetic jet (also called, Zero Net Mass Flux jet) actuator is produced by a single piezoelectric diaphragm, sealed in a cavity. An unsteady periodic turbulence modeling of a synthetic jet is carried out applying the k- :, RNG k- : and SST/k- two-equation models based on URANS. The present results show that the SST/k- turbulence model predicts the phase-average and long-time average velocity fields more accurately as compared with the other eddy-viscosity models. Also, the RNG k- : model is more responsive than the k-E: model in the field of phase-average velocity.