The starting vortex induced by a three-electrode plasma actuator

J. D'ADAMO; B PAYET; P CRESSON; M RAMOS; R SOSA

Tandil

Congreso; XIII Reunión sobre Recientes Avances en Física de Fluidos y sus Aplicaciones; 2014

The flow field produced by a three electrode plasma actuator in quiescent air is studied using Schlieren-flow visualization, smoke-flow visualization and particle image velocimetry (PIV). When the plasma actuator is activated, a non-stationary flow is produced, characterized by a coherent structure: the roll up of a starting vortex. Hence, the plasma actuator can be study within this configuration independently from flow geometry constraints. For a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) actuator, Whalley et al. (2012) found that the plasma jet momentum increases linearly with time, suggesting that the DBD actuator entrains and accelerates the surrounding fluid with a constant force. Scaling laws for the starting vortex generated by different forcing amplitude parameters can be deduced. We perform a similar study for the three-electrode plasma configuration with special interest on the modifications regarding electrical forces distribution near the wall. The analysis will allow us to a better optimization of these actuators concerning future engineering