Investigation of the Flow Structure on a Flat Plate Induced by Unsteady Plasma Actuation with DNS Methods

An investigation into the flow characteristic on a flat plate induced by an unsteady plasma was conducted with the methods of direct numerical simulations(DNS).A simplified model of dielectric barrier discharge(DBD) plasma was applied and its parameters were calibrated with the experimental results.In the simulations,effects of the actuation frequency on the flow were examined.The instantaneous flow parameters were also drawn to serve as a detailed study on the behavior when the plasma actuator was applied to the flow.The result shows that induced by the unsteady actuation,a series of vortex pairs which showed dipole formation and periodicity distribution were formed in the boundary layer.The production of these vortex pairs indicated a strong energy exchange between the main flow and the boundary layer.They moved downstream under the action of the free stream and decayed under the influence of the fluid viscosity.The distance of the neighboring vortices was found to be determined by the actuation frequency.Interaction of the neighboring vortices would be ignored when the actuation frequency was too small to make a difference.     

Reduction of turbulent boundary layer drag through dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuation based on the Spalding formula

Abstract It is a very difficult task to develop a method of reducing turbulent boundary layer drag. However, in recent years, plasma flow control technology has demonstrated huge potential in friction drag reduction. To further investigate this issue, a smooth plate model was designed as a testing object arranged with a bidirectional dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuator. In addition, measurement of skin friction drag was achieved by applying hot wire anemometry to obtain the velocity distribution of the turbulent boundary layer. A method of quantifying the friction drag effect was adopted based on the Spalding formula fitted with the experiment data. When plasma actuation was conducted, a velocity defect occurred at the two measuring positions, compared with the no plasma control condition; this means that the DBD plasma actuation could reduce the drag successfully in the downstream of the actuator. Moreover, drag reduction caused by backward actuation was slightly more efficient than that caused by forward actuation. With an increasing distance from plasma actuation, the drag-reduction effect could become weaker. Experimental results also show that the improvement of drag-reduction efficiency using a DBD plasma actuator can achieve about 8.78% in the local region of the experimental flat model.     

Numerical Investigation of Plasma Active Flow Control

Based on the theory of EHD (electronhydrodynamic) ,a simplified volume force model is applied to simulation to analyze the traits of plasma flow control in flow field, in which the cold plasma is generated by a DBD (dielectric-barrier-discharge) actuator. With the paraelectric action of volume force in electric field, acceleration characteristics of the plasma flow are investigated for different excitation intensities of RF(radio frequency) power for the actuator. Furthermore, the plasma acceleration leads to an asymmetric distribution of flow field, and hence induces the deflection of jet plume , then results in a significant deflection angle of 6.26o thrust-vectoring effect. It appears that the plasma flow control technology is a new tentative method for the thrust-vectoring control of a space vehicle.     

Vortex dynamics over an airfoil controlled by a nanosecond pulse discharge plasma actuator at low wind speed

The vortex dynamics of flow over an airfoil controlled by a nanosecond pulse dielectric-barrierdischarge(NS-DBD) actuator is studied at a Reynolds number of 1?×?10~5 through wind tunnel experiments and numerical simulation. The numerical method is validated through comparison of the simulated and measured results regarding the effect of the discharge of an NS-DBD actuator placed on a flat plate. The simulated results show that vorticity is mainly induced by the baroclinic torque after plasma discharge, i.e. the term(■) in the equation of vorticity evolution. Both experimental and simulated results demonstrate that after the discharge of the NS-DBD actuator a series of vortices are developed in the shear layer and pull the high-moment fluid down to the wall, enhancing the mixing of internal and external flows.     

Investigation of the DBD Plasma Effect on Flat Plate Flow

Particle image velocimetry experiments and simulations were conducted in this study to clarify the influence of the DBD plasma actuator on the flow over a flat plate. The result shows that the actuator not only effectively leads to a local rise in near-wall velocity, but also efficiently causes a decrease in the displacement thickness of the boundary layer. Actuator-induced vorticity is generated to intensify the energy exchange between the main flow and the boundary layer, and dynamic energy is thus added directly to the low-energy fluid by the actuator. Although the increase in fluid velocity also brings a rise in dynamic energy loss, the energy added by the actuator can cover this to provide growth in the energy of the boundary layer. The plasma actuator presents a better performance when the free-stream velocity is lower.     

Active control of noise amplification in the flow over a square leading-edge flat plate utilizing DBD plasma actuator

Perturbation is generally considered as the flow noise,and its energy can gain transient growth in the separation bubble.The amplified perturbations may cause unstable Kelvin–Helmohltz vortices which induce the three-dimensional transition.Active control of noise amplification via dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator in the flow over a square leading-edge flat plate is numerically studied.The actuator is installed near the plate leading-edge where the separation bubble is formed.The maximum energy amplification of perturbations is positively correlated with the separation bubble scale which decreases with the increasing control parameters.As the magnitude of noise amplification is reduced,the laminar-turbulent transition is successfully suppressed.     

A saw-tooth plasma actuator for film cooling efficiency enhancement of a shaped hole

This paper reports the large eddy simulations of the effects of a saw-tooth plasma actuator and the laidback fan-shaped hole on the film cooling flow characteristics,and the numerical results are compared with a corresponding standard configuration (cylindrical hole without the sawtooth plasma actuator).For this numerical research,the saw-tooth plasma actuator is installed just downstream of the cooling hole and a phenomenological plasma model is employed to provide the 3D plasma force vectors.The results show that thanks to the downward force and the momentum injection effect of the saw-tooth plasma actuator,the cold jet comes closer to the wall surface and extends further downstream.The saw-tooth plasma actuator also induces a new pair of vortex which weakens the strength of the counter-rotating vortex pair (CRVP) and entrains the coolant towards the wall,and thus the diffusion of the cold jet in the crossflow is suppressed.Furthermore,the laidback fan-shaped hole reduces the vertical jet velocity causing the disappearance of downstream spiral separation node vortices,this compensates for the deficiency of the saw-tooth plasma actuator.Both effects of the laidback fan-shaped hole and the saw-tooth plasma actuator effectively control the development of the CRVP whose size and strength are smaller than those of the anti-counter rotating vortex pair in the far field,thus the centerline and the spanwise-averaged film cooling efficiency are enhanced.The average film cooling efficiency is the biggest in the Fan-Dc =1 case,which is 80％ bigger than that in the Fan-Dc =0 case and 288％ bigger than that in the Cyl-Dc =0 case.     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation on the Attenuation of Electromagnetic Waves in Unmagnetized Plasmas Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Actuator

The attenuation of electromagnetic(EM) waves in unmagnetized plasma generated by an inductively coupled plasma(ICP) actuator has been investigated both theoretically and experimentally. A numerical study is conducted to investigate the propagation of EM waves in multilayer plasma structures which cover a square flat plate. Experimentally, an ICP actuator with dimensions of 20 cm×20 cm×4 cm is designed to produce a steady plasma slab. The attenuation of EM waves in the plasma generated by the ICP actuator is measured by a reflectivity arch test method at incident waves of 2.3 GHz and 10.1 GHz, respectively. A contrastive analysis of calculated and measured results of these incident wave frequencies is presented, which suggests that the experiment accords well with our theory. As expected, the plasma slab generated by the ICP actuator can effectively attenuate the EM waves, which may have great potential application prospects in aircraft stealth.     

Experimental investigation of dynamic stall flow control using a microsecond-pulsed plasma actuator

To alleviate the performance deterioration caused by dynamic stall of a wind turbine airfoil,the flow control by a microsecond-pulsed dielectric barrier discharge(MP-DBD) actuator on the dynamic stall of a periodically pitching NACA0012 airfoil was investigated experimentally.Unsteady pressure measurements with high temporal accuracy were employed in this study,and the unsteady characteristics of the boundary layer were investigated by wavelet packet analysis and the moving root mean square meth...     

Experimental Characterization of the Plasma Synthetic Jet Actuator

The plasma synthetic jet is a novel active flow control method because of advantages such as fast response,high frequency and non-moving parts,and it has received more attention recently,especially regarding its application to high-speed flow control.In this paper,the experimental characterization of the plasma synthetic jet actuator is investigated.The actuator consists of a copper anode,a tungsten cathode and a ceramic shell,and with these three parts a cavity can be formed inside the actuator.A pulsed-DC power supply was adopted to generate the arc plasma between the electrodes,through which the gas inside was heated and expanded from the orifice.Discharge parameters such as voltage and current were recorded,respectively,by voltage and current probes.The schlieren system was used for flow visualization,and jet velocities with different discharge parameters were measured.The schlieren images showed that the strength of plasma jets in a series of pulses varies from each other.Through velocity measurement,it is found that at a fixed frequency,the jet velocity hardly increases when the discharge voltage ranges from 16 kV to 20 kV.However,with the discharge voltage fixed,the jet velocity suddenly decreases when the pulse frequency rises above 500 Hz,whereas at other testing frequencies no such decrease was observed.The maximum jet velocity measured in the experiment was up to110 m/s,which is believed to be effective for high-speed flow control.     

Analysis of flow separation control using nanosecond-pulse discharge plasma actuators on a flying wing

Abstract Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma is one of most promising flow control method for its several advantages. The present work investigates the control authority of nanosecond pulse DBD plasma actuators on a flying wing model’s aerodynamic characteristics. The aerodynamic forces and moments are studied by means of experiment and numerical simulation. The numerical simulation results are in good agreement with experiment results. Both results indicate that the NS-DBD plasma actuators have negligible effect on aerodynamic forces and moment at the angles of attack smaller than 16°. However, significant changes can be achieved with actuation when the model’s angle of attack is larger than 16° where the flow separation occurs. The spatial flow field structure results from numerical simulation suggest that the volumetric heat produced by NS-DBD plasma actuator changes the local temperature and density and induces several vortex structures, which strengthen the mixing of the shear layer with the main flow and delay separation or even reattach the separated flow.     

Effect of DBD plasma excitation characteristics on turbulent separation over a hump model

In this paper, the effect of dielectric-barrier discharge plasma excitation characteristics on turbulent boundary layer separation over a hump is investigated using computational fluid dynamics. Four different turbulence models were used for verification. The Reynolds stress model showed the best agreement with the experimental data, in general. Based on the verification and validation, the effect of duty cycle and excitation frequency on the turbulent flow separation were investigated. The results showed that the pulsed plasma excitation could effectively suppress the flow separation by mixing augmentation. With increasing duty cycle and excitation frequency, the flow separation first increased, then decreased again. The optimal duty cycle was 0.75 and the optimal excitation frequency was 50 Hz.     

Experimental Study of the Unsteady Actuation Effect on Induced Flow Characteristics in DBD Plasma Actuators

The main aim of this paper is to investigate unsteady actuation effects on the operation of dielectric barrier discharge(DBD) plasma actuators and to study induced flow characteristics of steady and unsteady actuators in quiescent air.The parameters affecting the operation of unsteady plasma actuators were experimentally measured and compared with the ones for steady actuators.The effects of excitation frequency and duty cycle on the induced flow pattern properties were studied by means of hot-wire anemometers,and the smoke visualization method was also used.It was observed that the current and the mean induced velocity linearly increase with increasing duty cycle while they are not sensitive to excitation frequency.Furthermore,with increasing excitation frequency,the magnitude of vortices shedding from the actuator decreases while their frequency increases.Nevertheless,when the excitation frequency grows beyond a certain level,the induced flow downstream of the actuator behaves as a steady flow.However,the results for steady actuators show that by increasing the applied voltage and carrier frequency,the velocity of the induced flow first increases and then decreases with actuator saturation and the onset of the emission of streaky glow discharge.     

Experimental Investigation on Aerodynamic Control of a Wing with Distributed Plasma Actuators

Experimental investigation of active flow control on the aerodynamic performance of a flying wing is conducted.Subsonic wind tunnel tests are performed using a model of a 35°swept flying wing with an nanosecond dielectric barrier discharge(NS-DBD) plasma actuator,which is installed symmetrically on the wing leading edge.The lift and drag coefficient,lift-todrag ratio and pitching moment coefficient are tested by a six-component force balance for a range of angles of attack.The results indicate that a 44.5%increase in the lift coefficient,a 34.2%decrease in the drag coefficient and a 22.4%increase in the maximum lift-to-drag ratio can be achieved as compared with the baseline case.The effects of several actuation parameters are also investigated,and the results show that control efficiency demonstrates a strong dependence on actuation location and frequency.Furthermore,we highlight the use of distributed plasma actuators at the leading edge to enhance the aerodynamic performance,giving insight into the different mechanism of separation control and vortex control,which shows tremendous potential in practical flow control for a broad range of angles of attack.     

Study on Free Surface and Channel Flow Induced by Low-Temperature Plasma via Lattice Boltzmann Method

Active boundary layer flow control and boundary layer manipulation in the channel flow that was based on low temperature plasma were studied by means of a lattice Boltzmann method.Two plasma actuators were placed in a row to obtain the influence rule of their separation distance on the velocity profile at three locations and maximum velocity in the flow field.Two plasma actuators were placed symmetrically inside a channel to examine the effect of channel height and voltage on the velocity profile and flow rate.It was found that the channel height controls the distribution of flow velocity,which affected the flow rate and its direction.Increasing plasma voltage had a negative effect on the flow rate due to the generation of a larger and stronger flow vortex.     

Large Eddy Simulation of the Effects of Plasma Actuation Strength on Film Cooling Efficiency

In this article, numerical investigation of the effects of different plasma actuation strengths on the film cooling flow characteristics has been conducted using large eddy simulation(LES). For this numerical research, the plasma actuator is placed downstream of the trailing edge of the film cooling hole and a phenomenological model is employed to provide the electric field generated by it, resulting in the body forces. Our results show that as the plasma actuation strength grows larger, under the downward effect of the plasma actuation, the jet trajectory near the cooling hole stays closer to the wall and the recirculation region observably reduces in size. Meanwhile, the momentum injection effect of the plasma actuation also actively alters the distributions of the velocity components downstream of the cooling hole. Consequently, the influence of the plasma actuation strength on the Reynolds stress downstream of the cooling hole is remarkable. Furthermore, the plasma actuation weakens the strength of the kidney shaped vortex and prevents the jet from lifting off the wall. Therefore, with the increase of the strength of the plasma actuation, the coolant core stays closer to the wall and tends to split into two distinct regions. So the centerline film cooling efficiency is enhanced, and it is increased by 55% at most when the plasma actuation strength is 10.     

Numerical Simulation of Stall Flow Control Using a DBD Plasma Actuator in Pulse Mode

A numerical simulation method is employed to investigate the effects of the unsteady plasma body force over the stalled NACA 0015 airfoil at low Reynolds number flow conditions.The plasma body force created by a dielectric barrier discharge actuator is modeled with a phenomenological method for plasma simulation coupled with the compressible Navier-Stokes equations.The governing equations are solved using an efficient implicit finitevolume method.The responses of the separated flow field to the effects of an unsteady body force in various interpulses and duty cycles as well as different locations and magnitudes are studied.It is shown that the duty cycle and inter-pulse are key parameters for flow separation control.Additionally,it is concluded that the body force is able to attach the flow and can affect boundary layer grow that Mach number 0.1 and Reynolds number of 45000.     

Experimental Investigation of Hypersonic Flow and Plasma Aerodynamic Actuation Interaction

For hypersonic flow,it was found that the most efective plasma actuator is derived from an electromagnetic perturbation.An experimental study was performed between hypersonic flow and plasma aerodynamic actuation interaction in a hypersonic shock tunnel,in which a Mach number of 7 was reached.The plasma discharging characteristic was acquired in static flows.In a hypersonic flow,the flow field can afect the plasma discharging characteristics.DC discharging without magnetic force is unstable,and the discharge channel cannot be maintained.When there is a magnetic field,the energy consumption of the plasma source is approximately three to four times larger than that without a magnetic field,and at the same time plasma discharge can also afect the hypersonic flow field.Through schlieren pictures and pressure measurement,it was found that plasma discharging could induce shockwaves and change the total pressure and wall pressure of the flow field.     

Experimental Study on Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuator with Different Encapsulated Electrode Widths for Airflow Control at Atmospheric Pressure

The surface dielectric barrier discharge(SDBD) plasma actuator has shown great promise as an aerodynamic flow control device. In this paper, the encapsulated electrode width of a SDBD actuator is changed to study the airflow acceleration behavior. The effects of encapsulated electrode width on the actuator performance are experimentally investigated by measuring the dielectric layer surface potential, time-averaged ionic wind velocity and thrust force. Experimental results show that the airflow velocity and thrust force increase with the encapsulated electrode width. The results can be attributed to the distinct plasma distribution at different encapsulated electrode widths.     

Numerical Study of Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer Induced by Plasma Discharges

A numerical investigation is conducted to explore the evolution of a plasma discharge and its interaction with the fluid flow based on a self-consistent fluid model which couples the discharge dynamics with the fluid dynamics.The effects of the applied voltage on the distribution of velocity and temperature in initially static air are parainetrically studied.Furthermore,the spatial structure of plasma discharge and the resulting force contours in streamwise and normal directions are discussed in detail.The result shows that the plasma actuator produces a net force that should always be directed away from the exposed electrode,which results in an ionic wind pushing particles into a jet downstream of the actuator.When the energy added by the plasma is taken into account,the ambient air temperature is increased slightly around the electrode,but the velocity is almost not affected.Therefore it is unlikely that the induced flow is buoyancy driven.For the operating voltages considered in this paper,the maximum induced velocity is found to follow a power law,i.e.,it is proportional to the applied voltage to the 3.5 power.This promises an efficient application in the flow control with plasma actuators.