MEMS Applications in Turbulence and Flow Control

Journal article, 1999

Manufacturing processes that can create extremely small machines have been developed in recent years. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) refer to devices that have characteristic length of less than 1 mm but more than 1 μm, that combine electrical and mechanical components and that are fabricated using integrated circuit batch-processing techniques. Electrostatic, magnetic, pneumatic and thermal actuators, motors, valves, gears and tweezers of less than 100 μm size have been fabricated. These have been used as sensors for pressure, temperature, mass flow, velocity and sound, as actuators for linear and angular motions, and as simple components for complex systems such as micro-heat-engines and micro-heat-pumps. In this paper, we focus on the microelectromechanical systems for the diagnosis and control of turbulent shear flows. We survey the status and outlook of microsensors and microactuators as used for those particular applications, and compare the minute devices to their larger cousins. Microsensors can resolve all relevant scales even in high-Reynolds-number turbulent flows. Arrays of microsensors and microactuators make it feasible, for the first time, to achieve effective reactive control targeted toward specific small-scale coherent structures in turbulent wall-bounded flows.