Multiple orifice synthetic jet for improvement in impingement heat transfer

Synthetic jet is potentially useful for cooling of electronic components and its utility has been investigated in previous studies. Synthetic jet will become further attractive if additional cooling can be obtained without a corresponding increase in the input power. In this context, we explore the use of multiple orifice single-cavity synthetic jet employed in direct impingement mode of cooling. Experiments are conducted for different configurations with a center orifice surrounded by multiple satellite orifices. The Reynolds number is in the range of 1000–2600 while the normalized axial distance is varied in the range of 1–30 in this study. The maximum heat transfer coefficient with multiple orifice synthetic jet is approximately 12 times that of the natural heat transfer coefficient and up to 30% more as compared to that obtained with a conventional single orifice jet. Interestingly, the average Nusselt number gets maximized at two axial distances-the two peaks can be of comparable magnitude. The appearance, location and magnitude of the two peaks depend on the number of satellite orifices and the pitch circle radius on which the satellite holes lie. It is proposed that a transition in flow behavior from multiple-jet to a combined-jet occurs, which leads to the appearance of this additional peak. The additional peak (at the smaller axial distance) can be utilized in the design of cooling solutions for compact devices. The input power reduces slightly in the multi-orifice case with respect to the conventional design. The average velocity at the surface is also obtained with the help of hot-wire anemometry. The use of multiple orifice synthetic jet does not appear to have been explored earlier and the results are expected to be useful in several practical applications.