Active Flow Control Based on Plasma Synthetic Jet for Flapless Aircraft

Abstract

Active flow control (AFC) based on plasma synthetic jet actuator (PSJA) has been attracted a lot of researchers since Anderson and Knight put forward the concept of PSJA for the first time. Since then the characteristic of PSJA has been studied by means of many numerical simulations and experiments. This article showed a series of studies that manipulated a vehicle without moving control surfaces. Firstly, we research the characteristics of the aviation actuator, including the effects of structure and parameters on performance. Secondly, we explore the influence of the actuator on the air field around the aircraft by simulation, including the influence of the actuator on the aerodynamic coefficients and pitching moment coefficient. Finally, since these changes are similar to those caused by the deflection of the rudder surface, we can equivalent the effect of the PSJA to the deflection of the rudder surface, and simulate the three-degree-of-freedom pitch control channel of the aircraft to illustrate the effectiveness of PSJA on the flapless control system.

Keywords

• Plasma synthetic jet actuator
• active flow control
• flapless control system