Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuators for Flow Control

The term plasma actuator has now been a part of the fluid dynamics flow-control vernacular for more than a decade. A particular type of plasma actuator that has gained wide use is based on a single-dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) mechanism that has desirable features for use in air at atmospheric pressures. For these actuators, the mechanism of flow control is through a generated body-force vector field that couples with the momentum in the external flow. The body force can be derived from first principles, and the effect of plasma actuators can be easily incorporated into flow solvers so that their placement and operation can be optimized. They have been used in a wide range of internal and external flow applications. Although initially considered useful only at low speeds, plasma actuators are effective in a number of applications at high subsonic, transonic, and supersonic Mach numbers, owing largely to more optimized actuator designs that were developed through better understanding and modeling of the actuator physics. New applications continue to appear through a growing number of programs in the United States, Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, Russia, Australia, Japan, and China. This review provides an overview of the physics and modeling of SDBD plasma actuators. It highlights some of the capabilities of plasma actuators through examples from experiments and simulations.