Body Force Calculation of Steady-State Plasma Flow with Accurate Pressure Measurement

Abstract

The pressure field of plasma flow induced by surface-dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuators in quiescent air is difficult to measure accurately due to the very slight variations in pressure of the induced flow. To solve this issue, a special pressure measurement system is designed. Several microtransient differential pressure sensors are placed on a plexiglass board that is arranged vertically to the plasma actuator to detect the inconspicuous changes of pressure gradient in the induced flow. The board is then moved in the horizontal direction, driven by the lead screw transmission. To verify the reliability of the experimental pressure field, the plasma computational model is applied to simulate the pressure distribution of plasma flow, and it is compared with the experimental results. To study how the pressure term contributes to the body force calculation of plasma flow, the measured pressure field from the experiment is regarded as the source term and substituted into Navier–Stokes equations to calculate the body force distribution. The body force neglecting the pressure term is compared with the body force that includes the pressure term. The experimental and computational results show that the pressure term is the critical factor of body force distribution, and therefore cannot be ignored.