Abstract
The time-resolved flow field of a spatially oscillating jet emitted by a sweeping jet (SWJ) actuator is investigated numerically using three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (3D-URANS) equations. Numerical simulations are performed for a range of mass flow rates providing flow conditions varying from incompressible to subsonic compressible flows. After a detailed mesh study, the computational domain is represented using two million hexagonal control volumes. The jet oscillation frequency is predicted by analyzing velocity time histories at the actuator exit. A linear relationship between the jet oscillation frequency and time-averaged exit nozzle Mach number is found ( f= 511.22 M + 46.618 , R² = 0.97). The results of our numerical model are compared with data from the literature, and a good agreement is observed. In addition, we confirmed that the Strouhal number is almost constant with the Mach number for the subsonic oscillating jet and has an average value of St = 0.0131. The 3D-URANS model presented here provides a computationally inexpensive yet accurate alternative to the researchers investigating jet oscillation characteristics.
Furkan Oz
Ph.D., Current Position: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Kursat Kara
Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Kursat Kara is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Oklahoma State University and principal investigator of the Kara Aerodynamics Research Laboratory. His research spans hypersonic boundary-layer physics, unsteady aerodynamics, and the emerging interface of quantum computing and fluid dynamics. A dedicated educator and mentor, he teaches core and advanced courses—including Fundamentals of Aerodynamics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Boundary-Layer Theory and Transition, and Quantum Computing—and supervises graduate and undergraduate projects in high-fidelity simulation and data-driven modeling. His work has been funded by NASA, NSF, Oklahoma NASA-EPSCoR, NAVAIR, ANSYS, and IBM Quantum. In 2025, he received the CEAT Excellent Faculty Award and was nominated for both the 2024 Excellent Teacher Award and the 2025 Excellent Faculty Award by OSU’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Dr. Kara earned his Ph.D. from Old Dominion University with a dissertation on hypersonic boundary layer receptivity to acoustic disturbances. He began his career as a research engineer at New England Analytics (supporting Sikorsky Aircraft), then completed a post-doctoral appointment at Penn State in hot jet simulations for aeroacoustics. In 2010, he helped establish the Aerospace Engineering Department at Khalifa University—where he won the President’s Faculty Excellence Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2015—before joining OSU. An active member of AIAA and APS, he served on the AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Technical Committee (2012–2021) and chaired/co-chaired multiple AIAA conferences. He also sits on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports and guest-edits its Quantum Computing collection.