Experimental Study On Flow Separation Control Of NACA Airfoil At High Angle Of Attack Using DBD Plasma Actuator

Md Daud, Nazri and Cheng, See Yuan and Mat Yamin, Ahmad Kamal and Ab Ghani, Ahmad Fuad and Zainuddin, Farah Ayiesya (2015) Experimental Study On Flow Separation Control Of NACA Airfoil At High Angle Of Attack Using DBD Plasma Actuator. Project Report. UTeM, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

Text (Full Text) Experimental Study On Flow Separation Control Of NACA Airfoil At High Angle Of Attack Using DBD Plasma Actuator.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Registered users only Download (468kB)

Abstract

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator has become the popular device in the aerodynamic flow control applications. The number of application of DBD plasma actuator increases due to its special features such as no moving parts, quick response and extremely low mass. For example, plasma actuators have been applied for flow control on airfoil, flow control around circular cylinders, delaying separation on turbine blades and improving the aerodynamic performance on cars. This study deals with the enhancement of aerodynamic performance on NACA 0015 airfoil when a DBD plasma actuator is mounted near the leading edge of an airfoil. Lift and drag force test, pressure distribution test on upper surface airfoil and flow visualization test were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of DBD plasma actuator. A study on a NACA 0015 is performed to improve its aerodynamic performance particularly focused on the evaluation and correlation of lift (CL), drag (CD) and pressure coefficient (CP). Besides, the flow distribution was visualized over an airfoil surface. The results were compared between the base case (without DBD plasma actuator) and actuation case (with DBD plasma actuator). Experimental works were performed at Reynolds number (Re) approximately 0.63 × 105 to 2.52 × 105 with external airflow 5 m/s, 15 m/s, and 20 m/s in the wind tunnel test section. The DBD plasma actuator was installed on NACA 0015 airfoil with 190 mm chord length and 260 mm span length at x/c = 0.025, where x is the vertical distance measured from leading edge and c was the chord length. The DBD plasma actuator consists of two copper tape electrodes (exposed and embedded) with 10mm width and 50μm thick that arranged parallel with 1mm overlap. For the dielectric material, Kapton film with 100μm was used. A high voltage AC current was used where the output of the circuit can reach up until 6 kV with frequency 16 kHz. The result showed that actuation case was able to increase the aerodynamic performance of an airfoil by increasing lift coefficient, reducing the drag coefficient and recovering the pressure distribution. These results were supported by flow visualization result which conducted at angles of attack α = 15° to α = 18°. These angles of attack are the important phase for airfoil during stall control condition, stall point and high angle of attack. It is noticed that the actuation case results avoids a massive flow detachment from leading edge by producing strong vortices. The strong vortices will flow near the airfoil surface and as a result the CL actuation case may increase. Therefore, the DBD plasma actuator became a better device to replace other mechanical devices in typical area interest of aeronautical field.

Actions (login required)

View Item