Computational Study of Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuator for Flow Control using COMSOL Multiphysics

In this work, we present a two-dimensional (2D) numerical model to describe the phenomenon of the flow in air plasma actuator, comprising two plane parallel electrodes separated by a dielectric layer. The simulation is developed through the use of the COMSOL software. We are interested in the development of gas flow model, in the studied actuator as a function of time, according to the fundamental Navier-stokes equations which govern the Newtonian fluid displacement. We studied the flow of gas with different actuator configurations, with initial conditions and well-defined boundaries conditions. The results obtained provide the velocity flow distribution and profile. The different geometries and initial velocity values affect the exit velocity of the flowing gas in the actuator. We have seen that the velocity is maximal on the upper electrode meaning that the electrode plays an important role in increasing the speed.