Flow-control capability of electronic-substrate-sized power supply for a plasma actuator

Abstract

Plasma actuators, which are very thin, light and flexible, are attractive fluid control devices; however, they require high voltage power supplies for driving. Installation of a high-voltage generation system on vehicles, such as cars and airplanes, which are separated from the fixed ground coordinate, is a big problem. In this study, a small and light electronic-substrate-sized high-voltage power supply was introduced for mounting a plasma actuator system on a small vehicle like a UAV. This small power supply generates high voltage by an LC series transient resonance circuit and a transformer and can output at least 7.3 kVpp with a base frequency of 6000 Hz for a plasma actuator with a discharge length of 1000 mm. This study investigated the capability of flow control of the present small power supply by focusing on the output voltage waveform, induced flow velocity in static gas, and separation control around the airfoil model, Also the small power supply is compared with a conventional large power supply which has been used in typical laboratory-scale experiments. The results indicate that the substrate-sized power supply is powerful enough for flow control around a small UAV.