Effects of Duty Cycles of the Plasma Actuators on Improvement of the Pressure Distribution over NLF0414 Airfoil

This paper deals with the effects of duty cycle on improvement of pressure distribution over a NLF0414 airfoil using the plasma actuators. Three Dielectric barrier discharges as the plasma actuators are flush mounted on the airfoil surface in different positions to improve pressure distribution at post-stall angles of attack. The experiments were performed in wind tunnel with pressure tabs measurements at Re_c=7.5×〖10〗^5. The main objective of these experiments is to find the most effective duty cycles for different excitation frequencies and different angles of attack. Results show that the plasma actuators in unsteady excitations are more effective in lower duty cycles on low excitation frequencies but the lower duty cycles lose their effectiveness on higher excitation frequencies.