Numerical simulation of active flow control in a symmetrical airfoil using oscillating synthetic jets

The analysis of an active flow control based on synthetic jets in a symmetrical airfoil profile is presented. The physical model consists of a NACA0025 airfoil profile with several slots along the upper surface. A synthetic jet with an injection/suction harmonic function is located at each slot. The 2D Navier-Stokes equations for an incompressible fluid are solved by using the OpenFOAM free source computational code. The purpose of the study is to analyze the influence of the out of phase synthetic jets (with different frequency and amplitude) on the development of the boundary layer and the lift and drag coefficients. We observe that varying the set of parameters of the active flow control system, the streamlines in the neighborhood of the solid symmetrical airfoil profile are modified in such a way that we are able to investigate low Reynolds number flows over a virtual shape with harmonic motion.