EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF SCALING EFFECTS OF WINGS ON THE FLOW SEPARATION CONTROL USING PLASMA ACTUATORS

Plasma flow control technology is an active flow control technology with plasma aerodynamic actuation as the control means. In order to further improve the controllable wing scales of plasma actuator, experimental investigations on characteristics of symmetrical dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator and flow separation control over a supercritical wing SC(2) - 0714 at high angle of attack using symmetrical DBD plasma actuator have been carried out by the force measurement and particle image velocimetry (PIV). The influence of wing scaling effect on plasma control is deeply studied and the energy consumption ratio coefficient suitable for separated flow control is proposed. In addition, the separated flow control mechanism of the plasma actuator is explored, and the influence law of Wing scale on separated flow control is mastered. The results show thats (1) with the increase of wing size, the length of copper foil electrode arranged on the wing is increased accordingly. The average power consumption of the actuator does not increase linearly with the increase of the electrode length within the scope of parameters in the present manuscript. When the electrode length reaches a certain threshold, the average power consumption of the actuator tends to a fixed value. (2) In the case of fixed Reynolds number, with the increase of wing scale, the control effect of plasma is not decreased, and the energy consumption ratio coefficient of plasma actuator increases. (3) The large-scale spanwise vortices and a series of coherent structures which are generated by the symmetrical DBD plasma actuator in the mainstream flow area and in the vicinity of the wall respectively become the key to the control of separated flow. The research results provide technical support for realizing the separated flow control of real aircraft using plasma actuators and promoting the engineering application of plasma flow control technology.