Optimum Duty Cycle of Unsteady Plasma Aerodynamic Actuation for NACA0015 Airfoil Stall Separation Control

Unsteady dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma aerodynamic actuation technology is employed to suppress airfoil stall separation and the technical parameters are explored with wind tunnel experiments on an NACA0015 airfoil by measuring the surface pressure distribution of the airfoil. The performance of the DBD aerodynamic actuation for airfoil stall separation suppression is evaluated under DBD voltages from 2000 V to 4000 V and the duty cycles varied in the range of 0.1 to 1.0. It is found that higher lift coefficients and lower threshold voltages are achieved under the unsteady DBD aerodynamic actuation with the duty cycles less than 0.5 as compared to that of the steady plasma actuation at the same free-stream speeds and attack angles, indicating a better flow control performance. By comparing the lift coefficients and the threshold voltages, an optimum duty cycle is determined as 0.25 by which the maximum lift coefficient and the minimum threshold voltage are obtained at the same free-stream speed and attack angle. The non-uniform DBD discharge with stronger discharge in the positive half cycle due to electrons deposition on the dielectric slabs and the suppression of opposite momentum transfer due to the intermittent discharge with cutoff of the negative half cycle are responsible for the observed optimum duty cycle.