Method to avoid crosstalk for induced flow acceleration in multi-stage dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators

Abstract

Dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators are flow control devices that can actively induce a flow using electrohydrodynamic force. This Letter proposes a configuration of multi-stage dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators to accelerate the induced flow velocity. In the proposed configuration, the encapsulated and exposed electrodes between adjacent units of the multi-stage plasma actuator are interconnected and share the same potential, thereby avoiding crosstalk phenomena. The thrusts, cross-sectional flow velocity distributions, discharge images, and electric field distributions are examined for the conventional and proposed multi-stage plasma actuators. The results show that the proposed configuration can increase the thrust and induced flow velocity efficiently compared to the conventional one. The discharge images also show that no crosstalk occurs in the proposed configuration. This is mainly due to the low electric field strength in areas where crosstalk would occur.