Turbulent boundary-layer control with plasma spanwise travelling waves

Arrays of dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuators have been designed to generate spanwise travelling waves in the turbulent boundary layer for possible skin-friction drag reductions. Particle image velocimetry was used to elucidate the modifications to turbulence structures created by the plasma spanwise travelling waves. It has been observed that the plasma spanwise travelling waves amalgamated streamwise vortices, lifting low-speed fluid from the near-wall region up and around the peripheries of their cores to form wide ribbons of low-speed streamwise velocity within the viscous sublayer.