Application of an Integrated Flow and Plasma Actuation Model to an Airfoil

A numerical study is conducted to explore the effect of a single dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator for controlling a turbulent boundary-layer separation on a deflected flap of a high-lift airfoil at a chord-based Reynolds number of 240,000. An integrated numerical model consisting of a dielectric barrier discharge electrohydrodynamic bodyforce model and a computational fluiddy namics package called NavyFOAM is employed in this study. Comparison of current computational results against experimental data indicates reasonable agreement between the two studies for the baseline flow as well as controlled cases using two alternating current wave forms including sine and pulse-amplitude-modulated sine with different modulation frequencies. Performance of the actuator is also examined for square and pulse alternating current waveforms. It is found that, at the experimental conditions, the pulse-amplitude-modulated sine waveform provides the most lift enhancement in comparison with other waveforms used in this study, despite the least power input that it requires to operate. The effect of the input voltage amplitude on the performance of the actuator is also examined for the sine and pulse-amplitude-modulated sine waveforms. It is shown that, beyond a critical voltage, the sine wave is more effective in improving the aerodynamic performance of the airfoil than the other waveform.