3D Simulation of the Effects of the Plasma Actuator on the Unsteady, Turbulent and Developing Flow within a Circular Duct

Abstract

The objective of current paper is 3D simulation of turbulent, developing flow and unsteady within a circular duct in presence of the body force vector persuaded by Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator inside the surface of geometry for the first time. This article aims at investigating of applying plasma actuator to control separation with special arrangement of electrodes. For this reason, the plasma actuator is modeled in OpenFOAM software and the results are validated.Subesequently, to examine the effect of the presence of the plasma actuator a numerical study is carried out on a 3D flow. The physics of the problem is determined by three phenomena of increasing the flow cross-sectional, developing flow and simultaneous flow in both radial and tangential directions, especially the pressure gradients. As a result of the geometry of the problem, the actuators are arranged differently and the electrodes are arranged in radial direction. The results indicate that plasma actuator delay the separation point.

Keywords

• plasma actuator
• active flow control
• flow separation
• unsteady flow
• developing flow