Fabrication, surface integration and testing of miniaturized dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators for active flow control applications

摘要

We present the realization and characterization of miniaturized dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) based plasma actuators (PA) by means of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Different organic and inorganic dielectric materials and electrode metals have been tested with respect to their resistance against low-temperature plasma. To make the actuator samples scalable and applicable to any desired shape we developed an embedding method to integrate the micro actuator in modern carbon/glass fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP/GFRP) materials to meet the requirements of modern aviation and automotive bodywork. In this context, we further show that the realization of PA can even be carried out on flexible inorganic foils. Additionally, microfabrication methods give the possibility of introducing a serrated high voltage electrode with which the plasma formation can be facilitated at the peaks due to a local field enhancement. Measurements of the induced airflow obtained by a Pitot tube show similar velocities as known from macroscopic actuators. We observed that the ionic wind flow is limited in the case when the actuators are placed too close together. This is attributed to a mutual influence of the electric field configuration resulting in lower total electric field strength.