An explorative study was performed to investigate the thermal effects in duty-cycled plasma actuation as an optimization approach of DBD plasma actuators for aircraft icing mitigation. Both continuous and duty-cycled plasma actuators were fabricated and implemented on a NACA0012 airfoil/wing model, which was tested in the unique Icing Research Tunnel available at Iowa State University (i.e., ISU-IRT). While the transient thermal characteristics of the two plasma actuation methods (i.e., duty-cycled plasma actuation vs. continuous plasma actuation) were revealed by using an infrared (IR) thermal imaging system, the anti-/de-icing performances of the different plasma actuation modes were also evaluated and compared quantitatively by using a high-speed imaging system together with the synchronized thermal imaging of the ice accreting surfaces. It was found that for the same time-averaged power input, the duty-cycled plasma actuation would have a much higher instantaneous power (during the "on" periods) that can generate more thermal energy to achieve a much better anti-/de-icing performance in comparison to that of the continuous plasma actuation. The thermal effects of the duty-cycled plasma actuation can be further enhanced by increasing of the duty cycle frequency, which was suggested to be very beneficial in improving the anti-/de-icing performance of AC-DBD plasma actuation. The findings derived from this study provided a guideline for the further optimization of DBD plasma actuators tailored specifically for aircraft icing mitigation to ensure a much safer and more efficient aircraft operation in atmospheric icing conditions.
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