Evaluation of Double-Sided Plasma Vortex Generator in Comparison with Vane Vortex Generator on Separation Control

Abstract

The present research has introduced a new type of Plasma Vortex Generator named as Double-Sided Plasma Vortex Generator (DSPVG) that has dual expose electrodes on both sides. This DSPVG is placed normal to the surface parallel to incoming air and creates vortices on it’s both sides. As conventional VG has an angle with flow direction which introduce device drag, to overcome this, DSPVG is placed with zero angle with flow direction; besides due to the smaller thickness and frontal area with incoming air than VGs, the drag penalty due to its geometry is minimised. Furthermore, as vortices are created on both sides, DSPVG is expected to reduce the number of Plasma Vortex Generator (PVG) with respect to the conventional embedded PVGs or VGs on the flow controlling surface. Hence, it is able to take advantage of height like conventional VGs and active control systems of PVGs with dual vortices on both sides. The impact of DSPVG on separation control has been investigated experimentally and compared its effectiveness with conventional vane VGs. Three different types of flow measurement techniques have been used to confirm the repeatability and consistency of the experimental results. Numerical investigations have been carried out to evaluate the experimental results. These findings show that the DSPVG is capable to eliminate the separation similarly to the conventional VGs but with higher momentum injection and more effective in minimizing drag penalty in the uncontrolled case as in OFF condition of DSPVG, there is no alternation of local flow which is generally affected in case of VGs that adds drag penalty.