Abstract
Characteristics of a plasma actuator driven by direct-current discharge were studied experimentally in a super-sonic flow. The discharge is generated between two small pin electrodes mounted on a Laval nozzle wall with a circle constant cross-sectional area in a Mach 3 flow. Current and voltage measurements indicated the generation of the stable discharge at low power consumption. It was confirmed that the wall static pressure increases beside each electrode and decreases just behind the anode for a 100 mA discharge. Furthermore, the stagnation pressure increment was observed close to the electrode surfaces. It was suggested that the pressure change due to Joule heating of the flow led to the modification of the supersonic flow around the plasma actuator.
