Flow control with plasma synthetic jet actuators

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the characteristics of a plasma actuator design for flow control consisting of an annular electrode in quiescent and flat plate boundary layer flows. In quiescent flow, the circular plasma region produced on actuation was observed to generate a vertical zero-net mass flux (or synthetic) jet, hence the name plasma synthetic jet actuator, the characteristics of which were found to be affected by the actuator operation mode (steady or unsteady). Pulsed operation of the actuator results in the formation of a starting vortex ring that advects ahead of the jet and secondary vortex rings near the actuator surface due to the additional plasma-induced fluid entrainment in the boundary layer. By varying the actuator pulsing frequency, multiple vortex rings were created in the flowfield and the resulting vortex ring interactions were found to increase both the peak velocity and streamwise extent of the jet. The interaction of the actuator with a crossflow was observed to be similar to that seen in conventional or non zero-net mass flux jets with the plasma synthetic jet penetrating into the mean flow. As expected, the influence of the jet on the freestream was found to decrease with increasing mean velocity and the impact on displacement and momentum thickness values diminishes as well.

Geometry optimization of linear and annular plasma synthetic jet actuators

“…Such inhomogeneous plasma is less efficient from the EHD effect point of view [2]. Other known parameters are able to increase the ionic wind speed which include the dielectric layer properties and the waveform of the voltage feeding the electrodes [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46].…”

Active Separation Control over a NACA0024 by DBD Plasma Actuator and FBG Sensor

“…Various studies have been made to explain this phenomenon using experimental and numerical methods [3][4][5][6][7][8]. In addition to the tangential jet, arbitrary jets have been created by using multiple or doughnut-shaped electrodes [9][10][11][12]. Proper combinations of these jets can enable flows to be induced in various directions.…”

Recent Developments on Synthetic Jets (Review Paper)

“…Application of plasma actuator 28 in a flat plate boundary layer flow had shown an increase in peak jet velocity as the actuator pulsing frequencies were increased. The SJ placed in a laminar boundary layer 29 for Re varying from 16 to 658 showed three types of vortical structures namely hairpin vortices, stretched vortex rings and tilted/distorted vortex rings (Fig.…”