Measurement of the body force field of plasma actuators

TLDR

A novel technique is proposed and investigated to estimate the body force field generated by a dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator. The method measures the spatio‑temporal evolution of the induced velocity field with high‑speed PIV, applies a full Navier–Stokes term decomposition with closure norms to separate pressure gradient and body force, and compares the results to load‑cell reaction force measurements and momentum‑balance calculations from the PIV data. The technique yields a spatial distribution of the body force vector field, shows agreement with load‑cell and momentum‑balance measurements, and can be readily used in computational flow solvers for validation and calibration of numerical plasma models.

Abstract

A novel technique is proposed and investigated for the estimation of the body force field resulting from the operation of a dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator. The technique relies on the measurement of the spatio-temporal evolution of the induced velocity field using high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV). The technique has the advantage of providing spatial distribution of the body force vector field. A full Navier–Stokes term decomposition is applied on the evolving field along with additional closure norms in order to decouple the pressure gradient and body force terms. Results are compared with load-cell measurements of the direct reaction force and also momentum balance calculations based on the PIV field. Agreement between the different methods is observed. The data can easily be incorporated in computational flow solvers and also be used for validation and calibration of numerical plasma models.