Effect of permittivity and frequency on induced velocity in ac-DBD surface and channel plasma actuators

Plasma actuators have attracted interest for use as active flow control devices due to their many benefits; they have no moving parts and are lightweight, can be flush mounted, and require low power. In this study, the performance of plasma actuators are experimentally characterized with dielectric material, dielectric thickness, and operating frequency for surface and channel actuator geometries. The channel height, changing the effective dielectric constant, is also varied. Induced velocities were measured using a pitot tube and PIV, and power consumption levels were recorded. For the surface plasma actuator, PTFE and GRE dielectric materials show similar performance, with Kapton producing the highest induced velocity jet. Higher plasma ionization tends to occur with operating frequencies of 5 and 10 kHz, with a minimum at 7 kHz – possibly related to a change to streamer discharge from corona discharge. Power consumption was also higher at frequencies of 5 and 10 kHz. Thinner dielectric materials outperformed thicker ones for a given high voltage input. GRE, which has the highest dielectric constant of the tested materials, resulted in higher induced velocities than PTFE and Kapton for the same dielectric thickness. For the channel actuator, the smallest air gap corresponding to the lowest permittivity generated the highest peak induced velocity at 12 kHz. Different air gap heights do not seem to affect the induced velocities for frequencies above 14 kHz. A high gradient of velocity reduction with streamwise distance from the exposed electrode of the channel actuators was also observed