Flow control performance evaluation of tri-electrode sliding discharge plasma actuator


 Tri-electrode sliding discharge (TED) plasma actuators are formed by adding a direct current (DC) exposed electrode to conventional dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuators. TED has three discharge modes depending on the polarity and amplitude of the DC supply: DBD discharge, extended discharge, and sliding discharge. This paper evaluates the plasma actuator's electrical, aerodynamic, and mechanical characteristics based on energy analysis, particle image velocimetry (PIV) experiments, and N-S equations calculation. The flow control performances of different discharge modes are quantitatively analyzed based on characteristic parameters. The results show that flow control performances in both extended discharge and sliding discharge are more significant than that of DBD, mainly because of the significantly higher body force of TED compared to DBD, which is up to 141%. However, conductivity loss is the primary power loss caused by the DC polar for TED discharge. Therefore, power consumption can be reduced by optimizing the dielectric material and thickness, thus improving the flow control performance of plasma actuators.