Plasma-Assisted Control of Supersonic Flow over a Compression Ramp

This study considers the effect of an electric discharge on the flow structure near a 19.4° compression ramp in Mach-2 supersonic flow. The experiments were conducted in the supersonic wind tunnel SBR-50 at the University of Notre Dame. The stagnation temperature and pressure were varied in a range of 294–600 K and 1–3 bar, respectively, to attain various Reynolds numbers ranging from 5.3 × 105 to 3.4 × 106 based on the distance between the exit of the Mach-2 nozzle and the leading edge of the ramp. Surface pressure measurements, schlieren visualization, discharge voltage and current measurements, and plasma imaging with a high-speed camera were used to evaluate the plasma control authority on the ramp pressure distribution. The plasma being generated in front of the compression ramp shifted the shock position from the ramp corner to the electrode location, forming a flow separation zone ahead of the ramp. It was found that the pressure on the compression surface reduced almost linearly with the plasma power. The ratio of pressure change to flow stagnation pressure was also an increasing function of the ratio of plasma power to enthalpy flux, indicating that the task-related plasma control effectiveness ranged from 17.5 to 25