Thermal and induced flow characteristics of radio frequency surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuation at atmospheric pressure

Thermal and induced flow velocity characteristics of radio frequency (RF) surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuation are experimentally investigated in this paper. The spatial and temporal distributions of the dielectric surface temperature are measured with the infrared thermography at atmospheric pressure. In the spanwise direction, the highest dielectric surface temperature is acquired at the center of the high voltage electrode, while it reduces gradually along the chordwise direction. The maximum temperature of the dielectric surface raises rapidly once discharge begins. After several seconds (typically 100 s), the temperature reaches equilibrium among the actuators surface, plasma, and surrounding air. The maximum dielectric surface temperature is higher than that powered by an AC power supply in dozens of kHz. Influences of the duty cycle and the input frequency on the thermal characteristics are analyzed. When the duty cycle increases, the maximum dielectric surface temperature increases linearly. However, the maximum dielectric surface temperature increases nonlinearly when the input frequency varies from 0.47 MHz to 1.61 MHz. The induced flow velocity of the RF SDBD actuator is 0.25 m/s.