Convective heat transfer in circular and chevron impinging synthetic jets

An experimental investigation on the heat transfer enhancement achieved by impinging synthetic jets with vortex generators, in the form of chevron elements at the nozzle exit, is carried out. The heated thin foil heat transfer sensor is used in conjunction with the infrared thermography to measure the spatial distribution of the Nusselt number on the target plate. The heat transfer rates of impinging circular and chevron synthetic jets are compared under the same condition of cavity pressure. A parametric study on the effect of the dimensionless stroke length and the nozzle-to-plate distance on the heat transfer rates is carried out. For increasing dimensionless stroke length, at short nozzle-to-plate distances, the chevron synthetic jet reveals a star-shaped heat transfer pattern similar to that observed for an impinging continuous one. The results show that a chevron exit geometry can provide a significant heat transfer enhancement for relatively small nozzle-to-plate distances, up to a 20% increase with respect to the circular synthetic jet. At small dimensionless stroke lengths, such an enhancement is observed for a wide range of nozzle-to-plate distances.