Flow Separation Control Utilizing Plasma Actuators

Sammanfattning: The goal of this thesis was to both theoretically and experimentally show the effect of a plasma actuator for flow separation control.  In the theoretical part a solver was implemented in MATLAB code, to solve the governing equations describing the plasma actuator.  The experimental part included PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) measurements of the velocity field induced by the plasma actuator, visualization of the effect in a wind tunnel and the development of a simple model of the plasma actuator based on the empirical result whose purpose is to be used in CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). The PIV measurements were performed with an acceptable result even though a lot of disturbance occurred in and near the plasma region.  The empirical result was used to develop the empirical plasma actuator model for CFD, which showed some interesting result.  The model implies that the induced force by the plasma actuator grows exponential with the applied peak-to-peak voltage.   The model was also used to predict airfoil performance with plasma actuators which showed an increase of the lift coefficient on a NACA0012 with a chord length of 0.1m.  Simulations were done for free-stream velocities up to 20m/s with three different configurations, without plasma actuator for comparison, with one actuator at the quarter-chord and one with three actuators on the airfoil.  With three actuators the increase of the lift coefficient was 108 percent at 5m/s and 14 percent at 20m/s. The simulations with one actuator were only performed up to 10m/s were the effect of the actuator still could be seen but for higher velocities the effect would probably be minor. The wind tunnel experiment clearly showed the effect and the advantages of utilizing plasma actuators for flow separation control.  The experiment showed that a single plasma actuator placed at the quarter chord of a fully stalled NACA0012 airfoil with a chord length of 0.1m, at approximately 20 degrees angle of attack and with a free-stream velocity of 1.5m/s, was able to reattach the flow behind the actuator. The result of the theoretical part was inconclusive, the code could not run with the appropriate voltage and frequency of the plasma actuator.  Some result was however obtained, implying that the time-average force induced by the plasma actuator was in the expected direction.  The theoretical model is however considered to have potential, the major problems concern the code which requires further development.