Pulsed Discharge Actuators for Rectangular Wing Separation Control

Abstract

Separation control experiments on a rectangular wing were carried out using dielectric barrier discharge plasma at subsonic speed for chord Reynolds numbers between 0.35 and 0.875·10. Surface pressure measurements and flow visualization show that global flow separation on the wing can be mitigated or eliminated with the plasma actuators. The data were obtained for a wide range of angle of attack, flow speed, plasma excitation frequency and power. New applications of several kinds of voltage pulses for plasma excitation are discussed including microsecond and nanosecond pulses. It was found that control efficiency strong depends on discharge frequency.