Development of engineering model providing body force distribution of Tri-electrode Plasma actuator

Abstract

Tri-electrode plasma actuators (TED-PAs) can induce a stronger jet than that of conventional two-electrode plasma actuators (DBDPAs). For practical application of a TED-PA, it is significant to develop a TED-PA engineering model for implementing CFD simulations. In this study, we model the body force distribution generated by a TED-PA utilizing the Suzen model, which is one of engineering models used for DBDPAs. First, we define a function to describe the charge distribution profile on the dielectric surface with two half-Gaussian distributions. Second, we define the maximum values of surface charge as functions of the voltage applied based on the plasma simulation results. Finally, the flow fields numerically obtained using the model developed are compared with the experimental results from our previous study. Although there are some discrepancies mainly due to the two-dimensional laminar flow simulation, the model developed can quantitatively reproduce the voltage characteristics of thrust force and the jet structure induced. Therefore, the model developed is expected to evaluate the flow control effect precisely.