An investigation into feasibility of impingement heat transfer and acoustic abatement of meso scale synthetic jets

While synthetic jets have found more applications in controlling fluid flow especially in aerospace applications, more recently they captured a lot of attention for the thermal management of electronics. While the jet sizes vary and may be large for microfluidic applications, it is preferred that they should be in the meso scale range for removing heat from electronics components. Current study focuses on the heat transfer and acoustic aspects of the small-scale synthetic jets. Synthetic jets designed and developed at the General Electric Global Research Center can provide peak air velocities in excess of 90 m/s from a 1 mm hydraulic diameter rectangular orifice. The jets are driven by a sine wave with an operating frequency of between 3 and 4.5 kHz, providing the highest thermal performance for the current jets. An infrared thermal imaging technique was used to acquire fine scale temperature measurements. Two heater sizes have been studied in the current study to understand the effect of the characteristic length. Several parameters are varied to find the change in the heat transfer rates with the jet location, driving voltage, driving frequency, and heater power. Heat transfer enhancements over the specific heater sizes are presented for the same jet. It is found that the enhancement can be between 4 and 10 times depends on the heater size showing that smaller sizes provide the best jet effectiveness. It is also noted that jet noise can be as large at 73 dB, but possible abatement techniques can decrease this noise level as low as to 30 dB.