Experiments for control of boundary layer transition by plasma actuators

Abstract

Plasma flow control technology is a new type of active flow control technology, and this paper carries out certain research on the basic principle of plasma flow control technology and its application on the wing model. The paper introduces the theory of plasma discharge and analyzes how plasma can control the flow field. A parallel dielectric barrier discharge plasma exciter is then designed and tested by using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique to investigate the spatial flow field distributions of single-stage and three-stage actuators, and the mechanism of jet generation by the actuator is analyzed. Finally, the plasma actuator was utilized to control flow separation on a super-zero-boundary airfoil, and the oil droplet interferometric method was used to study the actuator’s role in controlling boundary layer transition. The experiment revealed that increasing the actuator discharge voltage can further reduce wall drag and more effectively delay the transition. Under the given conditions of a head-on angle of 6° and the incoming wind speed of 20 m/s, a two-stage actuator’s continuous discharge parameter was set to an output voltage of 12 kV and an output frequency of 4.7 kHz. The results showed that the transition position can be delayed by 13%, indicating the effectiveness of the actuator’s jet effect in enhancing the stability of the boundary layer flow.