The effect of actuation frequency on the plasma synthetic jet

Abstract

The flow induced by plasma synthetic jet actuator was simulated through solving the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations augmented by body force phenomenological plasma model. The effect of actuation frequency on the plasma synthetic jet was examined by case study. The numerical results present that with the actuation frequency increasing, the stream-wise distance of the adjacent vortex pairs induced by the actuator decreases monotonically, which is the same as the situation of the velocity fluctuations field caused by the vortex pairs. When the actuation frequency is 60 Hz, the vortex pairs formed during the adjacent actuation periods merge together quickly, and the flow structure in the downstream region is more close to that of the steady case. The actuation frequency has no visible influence on the time-averaged flow field of plasma synthetic jet. However, when the actuation frequency is relatively low (f<40 Hz), the momentum flux close to the actuator increases with the actuation frequency increasing, which is contrary to the situation in the far field from the wall.