Capacitances and energy deposition curve of nanosecond pulse surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator

Nanosecond pulse surface dielectric barrier discharge (NPSDBD) plasma actuator is preferred to generate aerodynamic actuation which relies on the deposited energy during nanosecond time scale, named as the mechanism of fast thermalization. It is very important to understand the energy deposition process of NPSDBD plasma actuator. In this paper, an equivalent circuit model is presented to describe a typical asymmetric NPSDBD plasma actuator first. Of the three key capacitances in the equivalent circuit, the values of Capacitance C-m and C-g can be gotten by the calculation of the electric field, with the method of undetermined coefficients, while the value of Capacitance C-d is determined from the charge-voltage (Q-V) plot, also called Lissajous figure. It is found that the value of Capacitance C-d varies with the amplitude of applied pulse voltage, due to the change of the dimension of plasma sheet. Based on the circuit parameters and the measured waveforms of discharge voltage and current, the time varying characteristics of deposited energy can be obtained finally. It is indicated that the calculated results of deposited energy show a good agreement with conventional method. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.