Budovsky A.   Polivanov P.   Vishnyakov O.   Sidorenko A.  

Plasma-based actuators for turbulent boundary layer control in transonic flow

Reporter: Budovsky A.

The study is relevant to the field of plasma aerodynamics and devoted to development of methods for active flow control. The feature of the study consists in development of actuators that can be effectively used for control of flow structure typical for the aircraft wings in transonic flow with turbulent boundary layer. The control strategy is based on using of the effects of plasma discharges interaction with miniature geometrical obstacles of various shapes (groves, channels, bumps, steps, cavities and wedges). All the conceptions were studied computationally using 2D and 3D RANS, URANS approaches. The flow was considered to be fully turbulent. The plasma discharge was simulated as volumetric steady/unsteady energy source. The results of the computations have shown that energy deposition can significantly change the flow pattern over the obstacles increasing their influence on the flow in boundary layer region. The most promising effects to be considered experimentally are unsteady cumulative jets produced by combinations of the surface discharges and combination of unsteady discharge with vortex generators. Namely, one of the most interesting and promising data were obtained for actuators basing on combination of vertical wedge with asymmetrical plasma discharge. The wedge considered is aligned with the local streamlines and protruding in the flow by 0.4-0.8 of boundary layer thickness. The actuator produces negligible distortion of the flow at the absence of energy deposition. Energy deposition along the one side of the wedge (in streamwise direction) results in longitudinal vortex formation in the wake of the actuator providing momentum exchange in the boundary layer. The actuator was manufactured and tested in wind tunnel experiments at Mach number 1.5 using the model of flat plate.  The experimental data obtained by PIV proved the availability of the actuator.


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