Experimental Study of Flow Control Over an Ahmed Body Using Plasma Actuator

Various studies on cars aerodynamics focusing on the Ahmed body model as a standard and simplified shape of a road vehicle have been carried out in recent years. In this paper plasma actuator as an active flow control method has been employed to control flow around the rear part of an Ahmed body with the rear slant angle of 25°. Experiments performed in a wind tunnel in free stream velocity of U=10m/s using steady and unsteady plasma actuator excitations. Pressure distribution on the rear part was measured by 52 sensors, and also total drag force was extracted by a load cell. More over smoke flow visualization was carried out to determine the flow pattern around the body. The results showed that employing plasma actuator not only has an effective influence on pressure distribution on the rear slant surface, but also reduces total drag force in steady and unsteady excitations 7.3% and 5%, respectively. As a result, based on flow visualization and pressure distribution tests, plasma actuator in steady state actuation, could distract D-shape vortices and suppress the separated flow over the rear slant.