Experimental Investigation of Separation Control on a NACA0024 Airfoil using Stationary and Non-Stationary AC-Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuator

An experimental study of stationary and non-stationary dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator is presented to control the flow around a NACA0024 airfoil. First, an induced air velocity of ~5 m/s is generated on a flat plate in still air using an AC-DBD actuator to find the optimal setup of the actuator (voltage, frequency, electrode width and gap size). Using the same actuator in the optimal position/setup on a NACA0024 airfoil at Reynolds number of 0.48×10^6, we are able to increase the stall angle of the airfoil to 18°, compared to 16° in no-actuator state. Furthermore, during the plasma actuation, the lift is increased by up to 5%. We show that non-stationary actuation, while yielding a performance similar to stationary actuation, leads to a considerable reduction of ~51% in plasma power consumption.