Fluidic Oscillators’ Applications, Structures and Mechanisms – A Review

Enhancement of heat and mass transfer and decrease of energy dissipation are great necessities of the evolution of fluid flow devices. Utilizing oscillatory or pulsatile fluid flow for periodic disturbing of velocity and thermal boundary layers is one of the methods with exciting results. Passive methods of generating oscillatory flow are preferred to active methods because of simplicity, no need for an external source of power and low cost of implementation and maintenance. Fluidic oscillators are a kind of no-moving part devices which convert steady pressurized inlet flow to oscillatory flow or pulsatile flows at exit without any need for external power. In this article, the structure and physics of conventional fluidic oscillators is explained and a comprehensive review over various aspects of their application is done. Also, numerical and experimental studies with the subject of fluidic oscillators are reviewed and existing correlations are presented. Our review shows that fluidic oscillators have great potentials in all processes that oscillatory or pulsatile flow could be effective in their enhancement.