An extensive experimental investigation was conducted to study the effects of Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD), on the flow field of an airfoil at low Reynolds number. The DBD was mounted near the leading edge of a section of a wind turbine blade. It is believed that DBD can postpone the separation point on the airfoil by injecting momentum to the flow. The effects of steady actuations on the velocity profiles in the wake region have been investigated. The tests were performed at α = 4 to 36 degrees i.e. from low to deep stall angles of attack regions. Both surface pressure distribution and wake profile show remarkable improvement at high angles of attack, beyond the static stall angle of the airfoil when the plasma actuation was implemented. The drag calculated from the wake momentum deficit has further shown the favorable role of the plasma actuators to control the flow over the airfoil at incidences beyond the static stall angle of attack of this airfoil. The results demonstrated that DBD has been able to postpone the stall onset significantly. It has been observed that the best performance for the plasma actuation for this airfoil is in the deep stall angles of attack range. However, below and near the static stall angles of attack, plasma augmentation was pointed out to have a negligible improvement in the aerodynamic behavior.

Effects of dielectric barrier discharge plasma have been studied on the wake velocity profiles of a section of a 660 kW wind turbine blade in plunging motion in a wind tunnel. The corresponding unsteady velocity profiles show remarkable improvement when the plasma actuators were operating and the angles of attack of the model were beyond the static stall angles of the airfoil. As a result the drag force was considerably reduced. It is further observed that the plasma-induced flow attenuates the leading edge vortices that are periodically shed into wake and diminishes the large eddies downstream. The favorable effects of the plasma augmentation are shown to occur near the uppermost and lowermost positions of the plunging paths where the wake is primarily dominated by the vortices of the same sign. The wake structure in the presence of the flow induced by the plasma actuators shows that the actual effective angles of attack seen by the plunging airfoil reduces in comparison with that for the case of the plasma augmentation off situation.