Experimental Investigation on Stall Separation Control on NACA0015 Airfoil by Steady Plasma Aerodynamic Actuation

Abstract

Experimental investigation was performed to study the influence law of the free-stream speed, angle of attack and actuation voltage on the control effectiveness of NACA0015 airfoil stall separation suppression by steady plasma aerodynamic actuation. It is found that plasma actuation can effectively suppress flow separation on the airfoil at free-stream speeds in the range from 20 m/s up to 65 m/s. When the speed is 25m/s, the stall angle will be delayed by 3°, lift coefficient will increase and drag coefficient will decrease by 10.4% and 28.9% respectively. Moreover, Experimental results indicate that the threshold voltage increases with the increasing free-stream speed and attack angle. Meanwhile, both of smoke flow visualization and flow control experiments were carried out, conclusions show that the direction of induce flow has little effect on plasma flow control effectiveness, which means that momentum transferring is not the basic cause of active flow control of plasma aerodynamic actuation.