Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182

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Aerospace Science and Technology

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Separation control on NACA23012 using synthetic jet

Sang Hoon Kim 1 , Chongam Kim ∗,2
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, South Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A numerical study of separation control has been made to investigate aerodynamic characteristics
Received 9 February 2007 of NACA23012 airfoil with synthetic jets. Computed results demonstrated that stall characteristics
Received in revised form 21 October 2008 and control surface performance could be substantially improved by resizing separation vortices. The
Accepted 13 November 2008
maximum lift was obtained when the separation point coincides with the synthetic jet location and the
Available online 20 November 2008
non-dimensional frequency is about 1. In addition, separation control effect was proportional to the peak
Keywords: velocity of the synthetic jet. It was observed that the actual flow control mechanism and flow structure
Flow control is fundamentally different depending on the range of synthetic jet frequency. For low frequency range,
Separation control small vortices due to synthetic jet penetrated to the large leading edge separation vortex, and as a result,
Synthetic jet the size of the leading edge vortex was remarkably reduced. For high frequency range, however, small
Multi-array/multi-location synthetic jet vortex did not grow up enough to penetrate into the leading edge separation vortex. Instead, synthetic
jet firmly attached the local flow and influenced the circulation of the virtual airfoil shape which is the
combined shape of the main airfoil with the separation vortex. As a way to reduce the jet peak velocity,
performance of a multi-array synthetic jet was investigated. Moreover, a high frequency multi-location
synthetic jet was exploited to efficiently eliminate the unstable flow structure which was observed in low
frequency range. Finally, by changing the phase angle in multi-location synthetic jets, highly controlled
flow characteristics could be obtained with multi-array/multi-location synthetic jets. This shows efficiency
of the current approach in separation control using synthetic jet.
© 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction mentally demonstrated the delay of airfoil stall using an oscillatory

Since the beginning of human flight, many researchers and en-
gineers have attempted to increase lift and reduce drag by chang-
ing aircraft structure or configuration. These efforts have led to
efficient design of modern aircraft. However, existing high-lift gen-
eration system does not satisfy the strict design requirements for
a higher-efficiency and higher-performance aircraft, and as a re-
sult, more efficient flow control strategy has been investigated.
There have been continual researches in the field of flow con-
trol, especially, on the flow control methods using MEMS since
the 1990s [12]. Recently, promising approaches of separation con-
trol using synthetic jets have received a great attention. Among
the flow control devices, synthetic jet has become one of the most
actively studied subjects, because it has a potential to be imple-
mented in actual aircraft flow control system.
Many researchers and engineers produced impressive experi-
mental results in separation control [10]. In particular, an encour-
aging work was performed by Seifert et al. [26–30]. They experi-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 2 880 1915; fax: +82 2 887 2662.
E-mail address: chongam@snu.ac.kr (C. Kim).
1
Ph.D. candidate.
2
Associate professor.
blowing jet. It was found that the oscillatory blowing jet could de-
lay separation much more efficiently than steady blowing, which
had been traditionally used for this purpose. In the Defense Ad-
vanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Micro Adaptive Flow
Control (MAFC) program, a full-scale flight test of the XV-15 ex-
perimental airplane was conducted by Nagib et al. [21]. The test
results confirmed that synthetic jet could provide 14% reduction
in download force during hovering by controlling the local sepa-
rated flow around the wing. Amitay et al. [1] used a synthetic jet,
positioned near the leading edge of a thick airfoil, to reattach the
separated flow on the upper surface of the airfoil at stall. In addi-
tion, Smith and Glezer [31] investigated controlled interactions of
adjacent synthetic jets. Melton et al. [19] and Greenblatt [8] ob-
served that perturbations from multiple location jets on an airfoil
could favorably interact to increase lift.
At the same time, a number of numerical studies [5,6,11,16,25]
have also been carried out. Kral et al. [16] numerically simulated a
synthetic jet actuator and obtained the results that were in good
agreement with the experimental data. They also carried out sev-
eral numerical investigations on post-stall flow control and these
results demonstrated the benefits of RANS-based numerical ap-
proach for the efficient computation of synthetic jet flow [5]. The
benefits of a synthetic jet, a pulsed blowing jet and a pulsed suc-
tion jet to improve the post-stall aerodynamics of the VR-7 airfoil

1270-9638/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ast.2008.11.001
 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Nomenclature
c chord length
lc characteristic length
h slot width
U∞ freestream velocity
were investigated by Hassan [11]. He showed that effective separa-
tion control could be achieved with the synthetic jets by actuation.
Schatz et al. [25] studied flow control using a synthetic jet on a
flap. By coupling an optimization procedure, Duvigneau and Vison-
neau [6] have recently conducted a simulation of aerodynamic stall
control using synthetic jet.
So far, most flow control studies using synthetic jet mainly
focused on low Reynolds number flow regime because the flow
instability mechanism by turbulent transition was the main re-
search interest, and experimental studies on high Reynolds number
flows were relatively difficult. The flow control characteristics at
high Reynolds numbers, however, is very important because the
results can provide valuable information whether the flow control
strategy can be applied to actual aircraft system. Seifert et al. [30]
demonstrated an active flow control strategy to increase lift at high
Reynolds numbers, corresponding to a jet airplane under take-off
condition. Studies in active flow control include lift enhancement
and drag reduction, propulsion/airframe integration, maneuvering
and so on [2]. Among these topics, lift enhancement is classified
as separation control and circulation control. It was mentioned that
the simplified high lift system combined with the lift enhancement
devices could provide substantial improvements in terms of vehi-
cle weight and lift [2,18].
The focus of the present paper is to numerically investigate the
lift enhancement mechanism using synthetic jets on NACA23012
airfoil, which has been frequently used as a model airfoil of vari-
ous high lift systems [13,32,33]. Various synthetic jets were applied
to NACA23012 with a 20% chord flap, and the flow characteristics
of separation control on the leading edge and plain flap were ex-
amined. Performance of the synthetic jet with a simple high-lift
device under optimal flow control conditions was investigated. Fur-
thermore, a multi-array synthetic jet was introduced as a way to
reduce the amplitude of the jet peak velocity. And multi-location
synthetic jets were also investigated as a remedy to cure unsta-
ble separated vortex flows on the airfoil suction surface. Finally,
flow control combining multi-array and multi-location synthetic
jets was employed to provide a stable flow structure with a re-
duced jet peak velocity.
2. Numerical methods
2.1. Governing equations
Accurate prediction of stall characteristics with or without tur-
bulence models is still an extremely challenging task. The present
approach relies on solving the Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–
Stokes (URANS) equations. From the view point of computational
cost, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) at high Reynolds number flows
requires huge computing resources, although it could provide
higher fidelity details of turbulent flow-fields. At the same time,
URANS simulation combined with adequate turbulence models
such as the k–w SST turbulent model could provide reasonably
good solutions [24].
The incompressible governing equations are given by the conti-
nuity equation
∇ · ū = 0,
173
A jet suction or blowing amplitude, instantaneous peak ve-
locity at orifice
f frequency of periodic excitation
Cμ momentum coefficient, ( A jet /U ∞ )2 h/lc
F+ non-dimensional frequency, f lc /U ∞
and the momentum equations
∂ ū
ρ + ρ ū · ∇ ū = −∇ p̄ + (μ + μt )∇ 2 ū, (2)
∂t
for the conservation of mass and momentum, where the over-bar
indicates a Reynolds-averaged quantity. The governing equations
were then solved time-accurately by using the method of pseudo-
compressibility [4]. Using the MUSCL approach, the upwind dif-
ferencing scheme based on flux-difference splitting was used to
calculate the convective term at a third-order spatial accuracy. Vis-
cous fluxes were centrally differenced by a second-order spatial
accuracy, and flow variables were updated by the LU-SGS time in-
tegration scheme [35].
Turbulence model used in the present computation is the
Menter’s shear stress transport two-equation model which has
provided excellent predictions of flows involving separation [3,15].
All computations were performed with a finite volume based in-
house code that had been extensively validated by Kim et al. [15].
2.2. Boundary condition of synthetic jet
Rumsey et al. reported that the velocity distributions near the
orifice exit might exhibit some anomalies not captured or modeled
by CFD, but they also mentioned at CFDVAL2004 that reasonably
good qualitative results could be obtained compared to experimen-
tal results [23,24]. In addition, the ‘top hat’ condition neglecting
the spatial variation of the jet was employed to obtain physically
meaningful results [6]. Based on these results, suction/blowing
type boundary condition proposed by Kral et al. [16] was adopted
in the present work to model a synthetic jet actuator. Perturbation
to the flow-field was introduced by the jet velocity as
 n (ξ = 0, η, t ) = A jet f (η)sin(ωt )djet ,
u f (η) = 1 (3)
where ξ denotes the stream-wise direction, η for the cross-slot
 n is the velocity vector and djet is a unit vector in the
direction. u
jet direction. Spatial variation over the orifice was neglected, and
assumed as a top hat distribution.
2.3. Benchmark simulations using TAU0015 airfoil
Benchmark simulations were carried out by using the experi-
ments of Seifert et al. [5,22,34]. Geometry and experimental data
of TAU0015 airfoil are referred to in Refs. [5,22,34]. Benchmark
simulations were performed using two types of airfoil configura-
tion. The original TAU0015 model has two notches at the leading
edge and 76.6% chord. In previous computational studies [5,22],
the leading edge notch was slightly modified, and the 76.6% chord
notch was ignored. In the present study, this configuration is re-
ferred to as the “TAU0015-2”. On the other hand, only the 76.6%
chord notch was ignored in Ref. [34], which is referred to as the
“TAU0015-1”.
To examine the grid sensitivity, two sets of grids with increas-
ing grid densities (case 1, 3 = 381 × 110, and case 2, 4 = 481 × 125,
TAU0015-1: case 1, 2, TAU0015-2: case 3, 4) were considered for
the non-controlled case. Computational differences between case 1
(1) (case 3) and case 2 (case 4) were less than 2%, which is thought
174 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 1. Mesh for TAU airfoil.
Fig. 2. Lift coefficient curves of TAU0015 (non-controlled case).
to be adequate for reliable computations. Thus, case 1 and case 3
grids were chosen in the benchmark case.
Fig. 1 shows a close-up view of computational region around
the leading edge. A hyperbolic O-grid was used with the wall
spacing of a 1 × 10−5 chord. Outer boundary was extended to 30
chords. The number of grid point that covered the slot of TAU0015-
1 is 9. In order to maintain the same grid density, 13 grid points
were used for the slot of TAU0015-2.
In order to maintain sufficient temporal accuracy, sub-iteration
in pseudo-time was conducted until the maximum flow divergence
of a converged solution at the fixed physical time was less than
1.0 × 10−6 . The computations were carried out using the condition
of C μ = 0.0008, at the angle of attack of 22◦ . For each compu-
tational geometry, two sets of time steps (case 1, 2 of TAU0015-
1 = 1/350, 1/450, and case 1, 2 of TAU0015-2 = 1/250, 1/350)
were considered. Computational differences between case 1 and
case 2 were again less than 2%, indicating that time step of case 1
may adequately resolves the time-dependent nature of the flow-
fields.
Flow conditions are a Reynolds number of 1.2 × 106 for vari-
ous jet momentum coefficients, with a non-dimensional frequency
of 0.58. Fig. 2 shows the comparison of lift coefficients versus an-
gle of attack. Depending on turbulence models and computations,
some deviations between computed results and experimental data
can be observed. In general, the computed maximum lift coeffi-
cient and computed stall angle are higher than experimental data.
The TAU0015-1 airfoil is stalled earlier than the TAU0015-2 air-
foil, which can also be observed in earlier study [14]. Though there
are some differences between computational prediction and exper-
imental measurement, overall comparison indicates that computed
results capture accurately enough to understand the main flow
physics of post-stall.
Numerical simulations of synthetic jet control were compared
to experimental data. Various blowing coefficients were used at a
fixed post-stall angle of attack of 22◦ to benchmark the synthetic
jet’s effectiveness. Fig. 3 shows variations of lift coefficient. Lift is
in proportional to the momentum blowing coefficient for both the
experimental and computational cases. Although computed results
do not exactly agree with experiments, they do predict the general
trend accurately.
3. Results
The results are classified into two parts: single synthetic jet and
multi-synthetic jets. The objective of the first part is to understand
the fundamental characteristics of a synthetic jet as a function of
frequency and jet velocity and to obtain the optimal conditions
for stall control and to analyze the merits of a synthetic jet for
stall control. In the second part, multi-synthetic jets are simulated.
The objective is to overcome the magnitude limitation of the sin-
gle synthetic jet. The multi-array synthetic jet is introduced as
a way to reduce the amplitude of the jet peak velocity, and the
high-frequency multi-location synthetic jet is considered to obtain
stable flow structure with moderate jet peak velocity.
Simulations were carried out using the following conditions:
freestream velocity of U ∞ = 35.7 m/s and a chord Reynolds num-
 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182 175

Fig. 3. Lift coefficient versus blowing momentum coefficient.

ber of Re = 2.19 × 106 for various jet velocities and frequencies.

The chord length of the airfoil was 914.4 mm (3 ft), and the width
of the two-dimensional slot was 1.0 mm (about 0.11% chord). As
shown in Fig. 5, the NACA23012 airfoil with a 20% chord plain flap
was used.
For the purpose of notational simplicity, ‘F1’ denotes a non-
dimensional frequency of 1; ‘F2’ and ‘F5’ are for 2 and 5, respec-
tively. Similarly, ‘V1’ indicates the amplitude of the synthetic jet Fig. 4. Layout of NACA23012 with a synthetic jet (a) at leading edge; (b) at 30◦
deflected plain flap; (c) at leading edge droop and plain flap; (d) NACA23012 with
peak velocity is equal to the freestream velocity; ‘V2’ (or ‘V3’)
multi-array/multi-location synthetic jet; (e) multi-array synthetic jet.
means it is double (or triple) the value of the freestream veloc-
ity. ‘G1’ indicates that the distance between two synthetic jets is
the same as the slot width; and similarly for ‘G2’. ‘J’ means the used with the wall spacing of a 1 × 10−5 chord in all cases. The
number of multi-array jet slots. Also, ‘LE12p’ implies that the loca- outer boundary was extended to 30 chords, and nine grid points
tion of a synthetic jet slot is the 12% chord from the leading edge. covered the orifice.
To test the grid sensitivity, three sets of grids with increas-
3.1. Computational grid and time step ing grid densities (case 1 = 191 × 105, case 2 = 291 × 110, and
case 3 = 391 × 115) were considered for the case of the plain airfoil
Fig. 4 shows the schematic of the four airfoil configurations: a with single synthetic jet. From the comparisons of the computed
leading edge synthetic jet, a plain flap with a synthetic jet, the results in Fig. 6, the differences between case 2 and case 3 are
combination of a simple high lift system and a synthetic jet, and less than 2%, which is thought to be adequate for reliable compu-
multi-synthetic jets. As shown in Fig. 5, hyperbolic O-grids were tations. Thus the 291 × 110 grid was chosen in the case of plain

Fig. 5. Mesh of NACA23012. (a) Leading edge synthetic jet; (b) plain flap synthetic jet; (c) leading edge droop synthetic jet; (d) multi-array/multi-location synthetic jet.
176 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182

Fig. 6. Grid sensitivity study of NACA23012 airfoil (non-controlled case).

Fig. 7. Aerodynamic coefficients (non-controlled case).

Table 1 Table 2
C l and C d comparison for computational grid (NACA23012 with 30◦ deflected plain C l and C d comparison for computational grid (simple high lift system).
flap).
AOA Case 1, C l Case 2, C l Case 1, C d Case 2, C d
AOA Case 1, C l Case 2, C l Case 1, C d Case 2, C d
6 1.561226 1.560942 0.062234 0.062294
0 1.015154 1.015143 0.054253 0.054270 10 1.918138 1.916755 0.069342 0.069718
6 1.576063 1.573354 0.063348 0.063872 14 2.218762 2.214294 0.080550 0.082347
10 1.921880 1.920160 0.070584 0.071291 16 2.304373 2.298576 0.092063 0.094634
12 2.057941 2.057696 0.078883 0.079923 18 1.190475 1.199033 0.328885 0.331465
14 2.179794 2.181250 0.088091 0.089335 20 1.216121 1.209270 0.358825 0.363293
16 2.094417 2.085571 0.120943 0.123406

Table 3
airfoil with single synthetic jet. Based on this result, the appropri- C l and C d comparison for time step (NACA23012 plain airfoil at AOA 22◦ ).
ate grid for multi-synthetic jets was chosen as the 391 × 110 grid Case Period/div. no. Cl Cd
(case 4). Again, from the results of Fig. 7, the differences between
Case 1, F1V3 1/60 1.7582 ± 0.0363 0.11727 ± 0.01567
case 2 and case 4 are less than 2%. Case 2, F1V3 1/120 1.7713 ± 0.0359 0.11665 ± 0.01526
Similarly, based on the prior grid refinement tests, two sets of Case 3, F5V3 1/60 1.6223 ± 0.0512 0.10134 ± 0.01512
grids with increasing grid densities (case 1 = 321 × 110, case 2 = Case 4, F5V3 1/120 1.6159 ± 0.0513 0.10154 ± 0.01511

421 × 115) were considered for the case of the plain flap with sin-
gle synthetic jet. As seen from Table 1, the 321 × 110 grid turned
out to be sufficient for efficient computation. In the case of the
combination of the simple high lift system and single synthetic jet,
two sets of grids (case 1 = 361 × 110, case 2 = 461 × 115) were
examined and the case 1 was chosen from the results of Table 2.
Using the determined grid systems, the sensitivity of time step
size was examined. In order to maintain sufficient temporal accu-
racy, sub-iteration in pseudo-time was conducted until the maxi-
mum flow divergence of a converged solution at the fixed physical
time was less than 1.0 × 10−6 . Two sets of time step was selected:
one is 60 and the other is 120 time steps per synthetic jet period.
Table 3 shows the typical results for the case of single synthetic jet
located at 0.12c with the angle of attack of 22◦ . The differences be-
 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 8. Time-averaged streamlines of non-controlled case. (a) Leading edge separation with no flap deflection; (b) plain flap separation with 30◦ deflected flap.
tween case 1 and case 2, and between case 3 and case 4 are again
less than 2%, indicating that 60 time steps may adequately resolve
the time-dependent nature of the flow-fields.
3.2. NACA23012 baseline case
The results of the uncontrolled NACA23012 airfoil were com-
pared with the experimental data [13,33]. Fig. 7 shows the com-
parison of computed aerodynamic coefficients with experimental
data. The computed results agree fairly well with the experimental
data except near the region of stall. However, the general behavior
near the post-stall region is captured accurately enough to under-
stand the main characteristics of flow physics.
Fig. 8 shows the flow pattern of the uncontrolled cases. In
Fig. 8(a), for an angle of attack of 18◦ with non-flap deflection, the
flow is separated at the trailing edge region of the suction surface.
At an angle of attack of 20◦ , the flow is separated at about the 12%
chord from the leading edge, and at the angle of attack of 22◦ , the
separation point is moved a little bit forward. At angles of attack of
20◦ and 22◦ , a large separation region appears on the suction sur-
face without reattachment. Thus, the 12% chord from the leading
edge is chosen as the proper location of a synthetic jet.
In Fig. 8(b), for the case of a plain flap, the flow on the suc-
tion surface of the deflected plain flap is separated for all angles of
attack. The results show that the separation tendency is strength-
ened as angle of attack increases.
3.3. Single synthetic jet
Based on the previous computed result, a leading edge syn-
thetic jet was located at the 12% chord suction surface from the
leading edge as shown in Fig. 4(a). The inclined angle of the syn-
thetic jet was 23◦ with respect to the local tangential airfoil sur-
face and it was fixed for all cases.
177
The case of the plain flap synthetic jet is shown in Fig. 4(b).
Again, based on the previous computation, the jet was located at
the 81% chord suction surface from the leading edge. In order to
understand the overall flow characteristics, numerical simulations
were performed by changing the major control parameters of the
synthetic jet: jet peak velocity from 1 to 3 times the freestream
value and a non-dimensional jet frequency (F + ) of 0.5–5. The char-
acteristic length used in the non-dimensional frequency is the dis-
tance between the trailing edge and the jet slot as shown in Fig. 4.
The jet momentum coefficient is defined as the ratio of the mo-
mentum provided by a synthetic jet to the freestream momentum.
From the definition of the non-dimensional frequency [27], the ef-
fective geometric distance influenced by the synthetic jet momen-
tum is equal to characteristic length when the non-dimensional
frequency is 1.
3.3.1. Leading edge separation control
Fig. 9 shows a comparison between the baseline and controlled
results. The improvement of aerodynamic coefficients is most vis-
ible when the non-dimensional frequency of the synthetic jet is
1. As expected, the enhancement of lift and drag is proportional
to the amplitude of the synthetic jet velocity. Overall results show
that the leading edge synthetic jet could improve the stall charac-
teristics and thus increase the maximum lift coefficient.
At an angle of attack of 18◦ , the lift is remarkably increased
and the drag is decreased when the velocity of the synthetic jet
is ‘V3’. However, a similar improvement is not observed with a
synthetic jet velocity of ‘V1’. The reason is that the baseline flow is
separated at the trailing edge region of the suction surface for the
uncontrolled case (Fig. 8(a)), and the synthetic jet with ‘V1’ does
not supply sufficient jet momentum to disturb the separated flow
at the trailing edge. Irrespective of the non-dimensional frequency,
the synthetic jet with ‘V1’ just disturbs the neighboring attached
flow which has a negative effect in both lift and drag.
178 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 9. Aerodynamic coefficients with non-deflected flap (single synthetic jet at
0.12c).
At an angle of attack of 20◦ , however, the lift is increased and
the drag is decreased in all cases. In Fig. 8(a) of the uncontrolled
case, the separation point is now closer to the synthetic jet loca-
tion. Thus, even with a small jet velocity of ‘V1’, both lift and drag
are improved. Also, the maximum enhancement in lift and drag is
obtained when the non-dimensional frequency is 1. At an angle of
attack of 22◦ , the maximum lift coefficient is enhanced about 7.3%.
In this case, the separation point is very near the synthetic jet slot.
The effect of the synthetic jet is most visible when the location
of the synthetic jet and the separation point is the same. Thus,
the conditions for the maximum lift enhancement can be summa-
rized as follows: the approximate non-dimensional frequency is 1,
the location of the synthetic jet slot is equal to the baseline sep-
aration point; and the jet velocity is large enough to perturb the
surrounding separated flow. These results are similar to the con-
clusions obtained by other experimental studies [10].
3.3.2. Plain flap separation control
A NACA23012 airfoil with a 30◦ deflected plain flap was simu-
lated with a synthetic jet located at 81% chord (Fig. 4(b)). As shown
in Fig. 10, the lift coefficient before stall angle is greatly improved
when the non-dimensional frequency is 1. Also, as the amplitude
Fig. 10. Aerodynamic coefficients with a 30◦ deflected flap (single synthetic jet at
0.81c).
of the synthetic jet velocity increases, the lift coefficient becomes
higher at the same non-dimensional frequency. However, after an
angle of attack of 16◦ at which the leading edge stall occurs, a
similar tendency is not observed and the effect of the synthetic jet
is not noticeable, which is consistent with the earlier studies [10].
This is because the synthetic jet, which should be very near the
separation point, is now located within the region of flow separa-
tion.
At an angle of attack of 6◦ , the lift coefficient increases in pro-
portion to the amplitude of the synthetic jet velocity (Fig. 10). The
maximum lift enhancement is obtained at the non-dimensional
frequency of 1, which is the same result as the case of the lead-
ing edge synthetic jet. At angles of attack of 10◦ and 14◦ , the lift
enhancement at the non-dimensional frequency of 5 is also very
remarkable. This is because the high frequency jet (F5) can at-
tach the local flow firmly. Based on these results, the flow control
mechanism and flow structure, which may be fundamentally dif-
ferent depending upon the range of jet frequency, is investigated.
3.3.3. Frequency-dependent flow control mechanism
Judging from the previous flow control results, the lift enhance-
ment in the low-frequency jet (F1) was higher than that of the
high-frequency jet (F5). The basic difference is that, when the non-
dimensional frequency is 5, the local flow pattern is more attached
and the temporal fluctuation of the lift coefficient is larger than
that of F1.
 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 11. Phase-locked streamlines of single synthetic jet at 0.12c (AOA 22◦ ).
Based on the unsteady flow structures, the characteristics of the
flow control mechanism could be divided into two types according
to the variation of the non-dimensional frequency: low frequency
jet (F1) and high frequency jet (F5).
Fig. 11 shows the snapshots of the local flow structure at four
different phases: the start of blowing (0◦ ), maximum blowing
(90◦ ), the start of suction (180◦ ) and maximum suction (270◦ ).
As shown in Fig. 11(a), the low frequency jet produces a periodic
shedding of small vortices. The small vortices move along the suc-
tion surface and penetrate into the large leading edge separation
vortex. As a result, the size of the leading edge separation vortex
substantially decreases.
Fig. 11(b) shows the typical flow feature of the high frequency
jet (F5). In this case, the small vortex does not grow enough to
penetrate into the large separation vortex because the period of
synthetic jet motion is too short. Instead, the flow near the syn-
thetic jet slot is firmly attached, and as a result, a more stable
flow structure is developed on the suction surface. The change of
local flow pattern depending on jet frequency was also observed
experimentally in Ref. [9].
The variation of the unsteady flow pattern is very small and the
flow structure remains almost the same. Also, the combined shape
of the airfoil with the separated region forms a kind of ‘virtual’
airfoil shape. In order to examine the role of high frequency jet,
the circulation along the path around the virtual airfoil shape, as
shown in Fig. 12, was calculated.
Fig. 12. A path along the ‘virtual’ airfoil shape for circulation calculation (AOA 22◦ ).
179
Fig. 13. Circulation along the ‘virtual’ airfoil shape and the velocity at the slot
(LE12p, AOA 22◦ ).

Circulation is defined by Γ = − V · ds . Here, V is the veloc-
ity vector and s is a tangential vector along a counterclockwise
closed path. Thus, the discrete sum of the product of the tangen-
tial velocity and the discrete path is the circulation. The discrete
circulation along the closed path was obtained by interpolating
neighboring nodal values. It is then non-dimensionalized by the
uniform flow and chord length. Fig. 13 shows the periodic behav-
ior of the circulation. In the non-controlled case with an angle of
attack 22◦ , one cycle of the lift fluctuation is plotted over 360◦ to
compare the controlled case. In this figure, the circulation of the
non-controlled case is symmetrically oscillatory. However, in the
controlled case, the circulation is increasing at the blowing phase
while it is decreasing at the suction phase. In addition, Fig. 9 shows
that the fluctuation of the lift coefficient (or circulation) becomes
larger as the momentum of the synthetic jet increases. Therefore,
a significant portion of the supplied momentum from the high
frequency synthetic jet contributes to the temporal change of the
airfoil circulation. In other words, the circulation around the virtual
airfoil is strengthened or weakened depending on the phase and
momentum of the high-frequency synthetic jet. Fig. 14 schemati-
cally explains the corresponding aerodynamic consequences in low
and high frequency jets. Unlike the high frequency jet, the mo-
180 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 14. Schematic of circulation enhancement (AOA 22◦ ). (a) F + = 1; (b) F + = 5.
Fig. 15. Lift coefficient (ff: fowler flap, pf: plain flap, led: leading edge droop).
mentum supplied by the low frequency jet is mostly exhausted in
generating small vortices. Thus the temporal fluctuation of the lift
coefficient is smaller than that in high frequency jet (see Fig. 9.).
3.3.4. Combination of synthetic jet and a simple high lift device
Based on the previous results, the most effective conditions of
separation control using a synthetic jet were applied to an airfoil
with a simple high lift device. A similar experimental study with
a different geometry and flow conditions was also conducted by
Melton et al. [20]. The non-dimensional frequency was fixed to 1,
and as described in Fig. 4(c), the separation point was fixed by
introducing a leading edge droop and a plain flap, at which the
synthetic jet was located. A NACA23012 with a 15% chord lead-
ing edge droop and a 20% plain flap was simulated. The leading
edge droop was deflected at 20◦ , the plain flap was deflected at
30◦ , and the synthetic jet velocity was triple of the freestream ve-
locity. The characteristic length of the non-dimensional frequency
was the distance between the synthetic jet and the trailing edge.
In Fig. 15, the maximum lift of the airfoil with a 30◦ deflected
flap is almost 33.4% higher than that of the airfoil without flap de-
flection (baseline). However, the stall angle of the airfoil with a 30◦
deflected flap is about 2◦ lower than that of baseline. The maxi-
mum lift of the airfoil with a 30◦ deflected flap and a synthetic jet
(0.81c) is 52.9% higher than that of baseline. In the case of the air-
foil with a 20◦ leading edge droop, a 30◦ deflected flap and two
synthetic jets (0.12c, 0.81c), the maximum lift is 65.8% higher than
that of baseline. Furthermore, the stall angle is about 2◦ larger
than that of baseline. Consequently, the combination of the syn-
thetic jet with the simple high lift device produces the same lift
enhancement as a conventional fowler flap system. This is also
Fig. 16. Lift coefficient and its fluctuation width (with multi-array/multi-location
synthetic jet at AOA 22◦ ).
consistent with the experimental results obtained by Melton et al.
though the flow conditions and model geometry are different [20].
Through various numerical experiments on a single synthetic
jet, it was confirmed that the synthetic jet under optimal operat-
ing conditions was able to move the separation point and change
the global flow-field structure favorably. However, in order to ap-
ply synthetic jet to actual aircraft system, there are a couple of
additional constraints. First of all, the synthetic jet peak velocity
should be within a range of feasible velocity because it can re-
duce the weight and volume of the operating part (the membrane
of the synthetic jet, and so on). In experimental studies, the jet
velocity and actuator frequency of a synthetic jet depend on ac-
tuator type and manufacturing method. Nonetheless, a range of
70 m/s (V2) looks feasible [7,17]. Second, controlled flow should
remain to be stable under various flight conditions. In case of a
non-dimensional frequency of 1, small vortices play an important
role in lift improvement. However, these vortices can also be sus-
ceptible to external flow disturbance or gust which may lead to
detrimental flow structure including vortex breakdown or burst-
ing. In this respect, the high-frequency synthetic jet (F5) could be
more attractive because it could enforce the local flow to be at-
tached firmly and create a more stable flow structure. Considering
the two requirements, a multi-array synthetic jet is investigated
to reduce the jet peak velocity and high-frequency multi-location
synthetic jet is considered to provide a more stable flow structure.
3.4. Multi-synthetic jet
Both multi-array and multi-location synthetic jets were investi-
gated at an angle of attack of 22◦ without a plain flap, to examine
their performances. Multi-array and multi-location synthetic jets
are shown in Figs. 4(d), (e). A multi-array synthetic jet is com-
posed of several slots in one place, and a multi-location synthetic
jet simply means that a single or multi-array jet is located at sev-
eral places.
3.4.1. Multi-array synthetic jet
The synthetic jet was arranged side by side on the suction sur-
face of the 12% chord from the leading edge. A two-array and a
three-array synthetic jet were used and jet interval was equal to a
slot width (G1).
Fig. 16 shows the behavior of the lift coefficient with var-
ious slot intervals and slot widths. Here, ‘J1, h3’ means sin-
gle synthetic jet with triple slot width. In Fig. 16, when the
non-dimensional frequency is 1, multi-array synthetic jets with
the double freestream velocity (J2 or J3/G1/F1V2) produce the
same lift coefficient as the single synthetic jet with the triple
freestream velocity (J1/G1/F1V3). Since the three-array synthetic
 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
Fig. 17. Phase-locked streamline pattern with multi-array/multi-array synthetic jet
(AOA = 22◦ ).
jet (J3/G1/F1V2) provides more energy than the two-array syn-
thetic jet (J2/G1/F1V2/J2), the lift enhancement is a little bit higher.
As shown in Fig. 17(a), the basic flow control mechanism and flow
structure are essentially the same as for the case of the single syn-
thetic jet.
3.4.2. Multi-array/multi-location synthetic jet
The characteristics of multi-location synthetic jets were ana-
lyzed using two-array and three-array synthetic jets. As in Fig. 4(d),
multi-array synthetic jets located at the 12% and 30% chord
from the leading edge were simulated with the same frequency
(F + = 5) and phase. As shown in Fig. 17(b), the separation point is
moved toward the trailing edge by multi-location jets, and the sep-
aration flow shows a stable structure. However, Fig. 16 shows that,
with the multi-location synthetic jet, the periodic oscillation of the
lift coefficient is much more intensified compared to the cases of
single-location jets. This is because the in-phase high frequency
jets fluctuate the airfoil circulation more strongly by controlling
the velocity pattern around the ‘virtual’ airfoil shape.
With multi-array/single-location synthetic jets, some positive
effect is observed both in low and high frequency (Fig. 16). How-
ever, the gap effect is not noticeable in cases of multi-array/multi-
location synthetic jets. Also, compared to single-location jets, a
significant increase in the fluctuation of the lift coefficient is ob-
served again. This indicates that the jet frequency is still one of
the major parameters to determine the basic flow control mecha-
nism and flow structure even in cases of multi-array/multi-location
synthetic jets.
Although the multi-array/multi-location high-frequency syn-
thetic jet provided a higher lift coefficient and more stable flow
structure, the benefit was negated by the severe fluctuation of
the lift coefficient. In order to remedy this problem, the phase
difference between the first (0.12c) and the second (0.3c) multi-
location jets was examined. Fig. 18 shows that both the lift and
drag oscillation becomes minimal, actually reduced to the level
of the uncontrolled case, when the multi-array jets are operated
alternately with the phase difference of 180◦ . With this phase
difference, the undesirable fluctuation of the airfoil circulation is
nicely cancelled and most desirable flow characteristics are pro-
181
Fig. 18. Aerodynamic coefficients in terms of phase difference angle (multi-array/
multi-location synthetic jet).
Fig. 19. Phase-locked streamline pattern with a multi-array/multi-location synthetic
jet (AOA = 22◦ , F5V2/LE12p/LE30p, phase difference = 180◦ ).
vided. In addition, Fig. 19 shows again that the basic flow control
mechanism and flow structure do not change.
4. Summary
Flow control on a NACA23012 airfoil using synthetic jets was
numerically investigated for various angles of attack, jet velocities
and jet frequencies at a relatively high Reynolds number. The syn-
thetic jet was able to push the separation point backward and thus
change the global flow-field structure favorably. Consequently, stall
characteristics and control surface performance were remarkably
improved.
The aerodynamic characteristics of the flow control could
be divided into two types according to the range of the non-
dimensional frequency. For low frequency, a small vortex pene-
trated into the large separated flow at the leading edge, which led
to the substantial size reduction of the leading edge separation
vortex. For high frequency, the small vortex did not grow enough
to penetrate into the large separation vortex. Instead, the synthetic
jet firmly attached the local flow and changed the circulation of
the virtual airfoil shape. The maximum lift was obtained when the
separation point coincided with the synthetic jet location and the
non-dimensional frequency was 1. In addition, the separation con-
trol effect was proportional to the jet momentum.
Although the small vortex generated in the low frequency range
beneficially affected the separation control and the lift enhance-
ment, it caused the local flow structure to be easily destabilized by
external disturbance or gust. Besides, if the required peak velocity
is too large, the weight and size of the synthetic jet would also in-
crease, which may hamper the efficient design and manufacturing
of a flow control system based on synthetic jets. Thus, the perfor-
mance of a multi-array synthetic jet was investigated to reduce
the jet peak velocity. Moreover, a high frequency multi-location
182 S.H. Kim, C. Kim / Aerospace Science and Technology 13 (2009) 172–182
synthetic jet was proposed to control the unstable flow structure
efficiently. The severe fluctuation of the lift coefficient, which ap-
peared in the high frequency range due to the temporal change
of circulation, was remedied by introducing a phase difference in
multi-location synthetic jets. As a result, desirable flow control ef-
fects were obtained by multi-array/multi-location synthetic jets.
Acknowledgements
Authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by De-
fense Acquisition Program Administration and Agency for Defense
Development (UD070041AD), the Brain Korea 21 Project, the Smart
UAV Development Program of the 21th Frontier R&D Program
sponsored by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, and KISTI Su-
percomputing Center (KSC-2007-S00-1016).
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