Test stand for pulsed jet actuator command and characterization

Abstract The paper presents a test stand for characterization of a new design of a Pulsed Jet Actuator. The aim of the work was to characterize the performance of the PJA in terms of air parameters in the air supply line and velocity at the PJA outlet. To perform a detailed characterization of the system performance, the test bench comprised: a pressure reductor, a mass flow rate controller, a mass flow rate meter, a pressure sensor, a fast pressure sensor, a flow temperature sensor and a Constant Temperature Anemometer. The PJA was commanded by a real time controller with Field Programmed Gate Array architecture. The experimental results show good agreement with the results of Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations performed at the design stage of the PJA. It has been found that the flow parameters at the PJA nozzle outlet match the design goals. The developed bench testing procedures will be used for silent conditions tests of the PJA system integrated into a leading edge of a wind tunnel model.