Circular cylinder drag reduction by three-electrode plasma actuators

R SOSA; J. D'ADAMO; G ARTANA

Journal of Physics: Conference Series

IOP

Año: 2009 vol. 166 p. 1 - 14

1742-6588

The drag  reduction  in  a  circular  cylinder was  explored by means of  a novel  three electrode plasma actuator (DBDE). The DBDE actuator can reduce the drag coefficient up to a ~25%  respect  to  the  base  flow  drag  coefficient.  It  has  been  demonstrated  that,  within  the present experimental conditions, the DBDE actuator, for a fixed value of the power coefficient, adds a higher momentum to the flow and, consequently, produces a higher drag reduction than the DBD  actuator with  the  same  power  coefficient. The  actuator  efficiency was  analysed in terms  of  the  momentum  added  to  the  flow  revealing  similar  behaviour for both  kind of actuators.  However  to  produce  similar  levels  of  actuation  both  kind  of  actuators  require different values of VAC voltages  that  resulted  always  lower  for DBDE. The  reduction  in  this high voltage value  is highly beneficial as  is directly related  to: a  lower HV AC source power requirement, a reduction in the dielectric breakdown probability of the device and a reduction in leakage currents.