Experimental Study of the Response of Transonic Diffuser Flow to a Piezoceramic Actuator at Diffuser Throat

An experimental study of the response of a piezoceramic actuator set at the throat to a transonic diffuser is carried out by measuring wall static pressure fluctuations and by visualizing the flow field using schlieren technique. The visualized flow fields are captured with a digital still camera and a digital high speed video camera. The piezo ceramic actuator is attached at the throat of the diffuser and driven by sinusoidal amplified voltage signals. The diffuser used in this experiment is circular arc half nozzle with the height h* and width w of 3 mm and 25 mm, respectively. The blockage factor of the piezoceramic actuator to the diffuser throat is 9.2% assuring the effect of change in the throat area rather than the boundary layer disturbances. The piezoceramic actuator is driven at the frequency of 100 Hz, 200 Hz, and 300 Hz and its amplitude is about 1 mm. It is found that the wall static pressure fluctuations and the behavior of the shock wave clearly correspond to the vibration of the piezo ceramic actuator for all the frequency ranges whereas the averaged shock position remains almost unchanged. All the results mentioned above suggest that driving the piezo ceramic actuator at the diffuser throat can be one of the promising techniques to control unsteady transonic diffuser flow.