An experimental study on the thermal characteristics of NS-DBD plasma actuation and application for aircraft icing mitigation

Abstract

A comprehensive study was performed to explore the thermal characteristics of NS-dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuation over an airfoil/wing surface and evaluate the anti-/de-icing performance of NS-DBD plasma actuators for aircraft in-flight icing mitigation. While the fundamentals of thermal energy generation and heat transfer in NS-DBD plasma actuation over the airfoil/wing model were described in great details, a series of experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of different environmental parameters on the heating efficiency of NS-DBD plasma actuators over the airfoil/wing surface. With the temporally-synchronized-and-spatiallyresolved high-speed visualization and infrared imaging system, not only the transient thermal characteristics of NS-DBD plasma actuation over the airfoil/wing surface were revealed, but also the anti-icing performances of the NS-DBD plasma actuators were evaluated under different icing conditions, i.e. rime, mixed, and glaze. The impacts of incoming airflow velocity, air temperature, and angle of attack of the airfoil/wing model on the thermal characteristics of NS-DBD plasma actuation over the airfoil/wing surface were systematically investigated based on the measurement results. It was found that the thermal characteristics of NS-DBD plasma actuation over the airfoil/ wing surface are closely coupled with the boundary layer airflow and the unsteady heat transfer process over the airfoil/wing model exposed in the frozen-cold airflows. The anti-icing performances of the NS-DBD plasma actuators under the different icing conditions were found to be varying significantly due to the variations of surface heating efficiency of the NS-DBD plasma actuators. The anti-/de-icing performance of the NS-DBD plasma actuators was found to be improved dramatically by increasing the operating frequency of the plasma actuators. The findings derived from the present study are very helpful to explore/optimize design paradigms for the development of novel plasma-based anti-/de-icing strategies tailored specifically for aircraft inflight icing mitigation to ensure safer and more efficient aircraft operation in atmospheric icing conditions.

Gasdynamic Flow Control by Ultrafast Local Heating in a Strongly Nonequilibrium Pulsed Plasma

“…It is clearly seen that, at a high actuator's pulse repetition rate, practically no ice accretion on the surface occurs. In [244,245], the results of [242,243] were confirmed using the longitudinal arrangement of the electrodes of a nanosecond actuator, similar to that used in [212] to control the boundary layer separation in transonic regimes (Fig. 74).…”

“…In [242,243], the thermal characteristics of an ns-SDBD plasma on the surface of the airfoil were studied and the de-icing characteristics of such plasma actuators were estimated. A number of experiments were carried out to assess the effect of various environmental parameters on the efficiency of gas heating under the action of an ns-SDBD.…”

“…74). The results obtained in [242][243][244][245] show, first of all, a significant stability of the operation of ns-SDBD plasma actuators in the presence of a large amount of water and ice and snow particles in the incoming flow, as well as the prospects for the development of new plasma-assisted strategies of de-icing, specially designed to reduce the icing of aircraft in flight conditions.…”

An Experimental Investigation on the Thermodynamic Characteristics of DBD Plasma Actuations for Aircraft Icing Mitigation

“…The use of DBD plasma actuators has gained significant interest in the aerospace engineering community as a promising flow control tool to suppress airfoil stall [21][22][23] and eliminate separation of laminar boundary layer flows [24,25] for improved aerodynamic performances. It should be noted that, even though DBD plasma actuators have been widely used for various flow control applications [26,27], the electromechanical efficiency of DBD-plasma-based approach (e.g., the ratio of the energy used to induce ionic wall jet flows for flow control to the total energy consumed by the actuator) was found to be usually very low (i.e., no more than 0.20%) [28], and majority of the energy consumed by the plasma actuators would be dissipated via gas heating and dielectric heating [29].…”

Динамика Пространственной Структуры Микросекундного Импульсного Барьерного Разряда В Воздухе Атмосферного Давления В Геометрии Острие-Плоскость При Различных Полярностях Питающего Напряжения

“…Высоковольтные импульсные газовые разряды находят широкое практическое применение в плазмохимических реакторах [1][2][3], плазменных актуаторах [4][5][6], медицинских аппаратах [7][8][9], при обработке поверхностей [10] и т.д., что обусловливает актуальность их изучения. Одним из широко используемых является барьерный разряд, реализуемый как в объемной форме, так и в виде поверхностного разряда.…”