Experimental study on flow around airfoil by using dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator

Abstract

This experimental study was focused on the usage of DBD plasma actuator for enhancement aerodynamic performance of airfoil model NACA 0015. The DBD plasma actuator was able to suppress flow separation near the leading edge by disturbing airflow near that region. It can be seen that continuous small scale vortex is produced near the leading edge and it flows near the airfoil surface. Experimental works were performed at Reynold number approximately 63000 to 252000 with external airflow 5 m/s, 15 m/s, and 20 m/s. A thin plasma actuator was installed on NACA 0015 with 190 mm chord length and 260 mm span length at x/c = 0.025, where x is the vertical distance measured from leading edge and c was the chord length. Lift force measurement, measurement of pressure distribution on upper surface of airfoil and flow visualization were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of DBD plasma actuator. The experiment was tested during plasma ON (actuation) and plasma OFF (baseline case). The result shows that actuation case may increase lift coefficient compare to baseline case.