Abstract: To further advance the development of dual synthetic jet (DSJ) based anti-icing/de-icing technology, an experimental setup for con-trolling the trajectory characteristics of droplets using DSJ was established. The effects of the actuator’s driving voltage and driving signal phase on the trajectory of droplets, when the actuator was stationary relative to the droplet and when there was relative motion, were studied using high-speed photography. The horizontal velocity increment of the droplet (named as Vxdroplet) 375 μs after being affected by the jet was used as an index to assess the impact of the jet on the trajectory characteristics of the droplet. When there was no relative motion between the actuator and the droplet (the turntable was stationary), Vxdroplet increased linearly from 0.65 m/s at a driving signal amplitude of 60 V to 2.29 m/s at 165 V. The phase of the jet at the time of droplet generation had a significant impact on the trajectory of the droplet. With a driving signal amplitude of 165 V, Vxdroplet varied from 1.11 m/s to 4.98 m/s at different initial phases φ of the jet. When the actuator approached the droplet at a linear speed of 4.4 m/s (achieved by rotating the turntable), Vxdroplet increased from 1.57 m/s at a driving signal amplitude of 60 V to 3.67 m/s at a driving amplitude of 165 V. Moreover, the rotation of the turntable itself had little effect on Vxdroplet. Additionally, when the turntable was rotating, the change in Vxdroplet with the initial phase φ of the jet had a time lag compared to when the turntable was stationary, but the overall trend was similar, and the corresponding Vxdroplet was larger when the turntable was rotating. The results indicate that the jet could rapidly increase the velocity of the droplet to a level close to the velocity of the jet in the area where the droplet was generated (O(m/s)). Even when the turntable rotated at higher speeds (with a maximum relative linear velocity of 22 m/s between the actuator and the droplet in the ex-periment), the dual synthetic jet still significantly affected the trajectory of the droplet.

Key words: dual synthetic jet actuator, droplet trajectory, anti-icing, high-speed photography, Particle Image Velocimetry measurement