Investigation of flow control by using plasma actuator of bipolar electrode

In this paper,a new multi-bipolar DBD plasma actuator is proposed for large-scale flow control applications.Multi-bipolar electrodes are adopted with the electrode of former covered electrode and later exposed electrode connected together.To validate the proposed method,particle image velocimetry(PIV) experiments are performed.The results show that cross-talk phenomenon can be reduced greatly and thus a constantly accelerating electric wind velocity can be obtained with the multi-bipolar actuator.It is concluded that comparing with traditional actuators the new configuration can increase the thrust significantly.We use this new designed actuator to control flow separation and associated unsteady vortex shedding from a circular cylinder in cross-flow.The test is performed at ReD=5.7×104 in a low speed wind tunnel.Unsteady actuation is applied on the circular cylinder model.The results of flow-control experiment in crossflow indicate that this type of plasma actuator is extremely effective in flow separation control.