Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuators for Flow Control

Abstract

The term plasma actuator has now been a part of the fluid dynamics flow-control vernacular for more than a decade. A particular type of plasma actuator that has gained wide use is based on a single–dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) mechanism that has desirable features for use in air at atmospheric pressures. For these actuators, the mechanism of flow control is through a generated body-force vector field that couples with the momentum in the external flow. The body force can be derived from first principles, and the effect of plasma actuators can be easily incorporated into flow solvers so that their placement and operation can be optimized. They have been used in a wide range of internal and external flow applications. Although initially considered useful only at low speeds, plasma actuators are effective in a number of applications at high subsonic, transonic, and supersonic Mach numbers, owing largely to more optimized actuator designs that were developed through better understanding and modeling of the actuator physics. New applications continue to appear through a growing number of programs in the United States, Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Russia, Australia, Japan, and China. This review provides an overview of the physics and modeling of SDBD plasma actuators. It highlights some of the capabilities of plasma actuators through examples from experiments and simulations.

Investigation of flow separation control by nanosecond pulsed dielectric barrier discharge actuators

“…Various electrode geometries are possible and di¨erent signals can be used to excite the actuator. Flow control with plasma is appealing as the actuators used are entirely surface mounted, lack any mechanical parts, and possess high bandwidth while requiring relatively low power to be actuated [9,14]. The response time is very short enabling real-time §ow control.…”

“…The e¨ectiveness of DBD actuators has been proven for velocities up to Ma = 0.75, with di¨erent geometries or actuation signals showing superiority in di¨erent §ow regimes [15 18]. Two types of plasma generation are typically used for DBD actuators: Alternating current power supplies, providing a sinusoidal signal to the electrode setups, for which the dominant e¨ects are the presence of a low-speed ionic wind by the plasma in the near-wall region, with injection of momentum in the boundary layer like a wall-jet and, on the other hand, nanosecond pulsed power signals that generate a localized injection of energy, a small vortex generation, and a pulsing microshock wave [9,11].…”

Flow control over a NACA 0012 airfoil using dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuator with a Gurney flap

“…He et al (2009) proposed a concept of ''virtual section shape'' using the plasma actuator, while Okita et al (2008) used the DBD plasma actuator as a vortex generator to control flow over a NACA 0024 airfoil. More details on the DBD plasma actuator can be found elsewhere (Moreau 2007;Corke et al 2009Corke et al , 2010.…”

Sensing and control of flow separation using plasma actuators

“…With the plasma actuator at the control level and pulsing at St = 1, the stall angle of attack increased from 15 • to 17 • , and the maximum lift coefficient increased from 1.28 to 1.40. The exact improvement will depend on the body force generated by the plasma actuator, which is a function of the actuator design, dielectric properties and the AC voltage level, as discussed by Corke et al [21,22]. The plasma actuator in this example also had the benefit of producing a 'soft' stall, where the lift remained near the maximum level for angles of attack well above the stall.…”