Flow control of leading edge separation using DBD plasma actuator

Abstract

Recently, dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator attracts attention as an active separation control device. This study is concerned with the flow control around airfoil when a DBD plasma actuator is mounted on the leading edge. The experiments are performed mainly in an external airflow of 10 m/s . DBD plasma actuator is installed at x/c=0.025 of 100mm chord and 150mm width of NACA0015 airfoil model. Aerodynamic force and velocity field around the airfoil are measured for the on and off modes of the plasma (pulse modulated drive). As a result, the on time per one period of pulse modulated drive affects a lift force, and the maximum lift angle increases by selecting optimum on time. On the other hand, drag force is nearly unaffected by the difference of on time. The faster the uniform flow velocity is, the shorter the most effective on-time length is, and non-dimensional effective time length is constant. When the actuator is driven with the most effective on-time, the strong vortex structure are formed in the shear layer and this vortex is maintained to the downstream.