Experimental study of the drag coefficient of a circular cylinder using a special configuration of plasma actuator

This research analyses the ability of a plasma actuator to modify the characteristics of a flow field around a circular cylinder. We have analyzed the modification of the flow around the circular cylinder when the flow was perturbed steadily using a plasma actuator. Two electrodes flushmounted on the surface of the cylinder were excited by a DC high voltage power supply in order to create a plasma sheet contouring the body. The discharge produced an electric force and changed the physical properties in the fluid layers at close vicinity to the surface. The pressure distribution results showed that by using this configuration of the plasma actuator, the pressure coefficient over the cylinder will be decreased significantly especially at high airflow velocities and the reduction of pressure coefficient would increase the pressure drag coefficient. In other words, the higher velocity we reach, the more reduction can be observed for pressure coefficient followed by the pressure drag coefficient become larger compared with low velocities. Similar results have been reported by other researchers and comparison of the present results with them shows a good agreement. In addition to study the effect of the plasma on the pressure distribution of the cylinder, the effects of the existence of the electrodes on the pressure distribution of the cylinder were also experimentally investigated and these effects of the electrodes were not reported by the previous researchers

Keywords:

Plasma Actuator , Generalized Glow Regime , High Voltage Power Supply , ElectricalDischarge