High-Fidelity Real Gas Model for RF Excited Plasma Flow Control - A Three Dimensional Analysis With Air Chemistry

摘要

This report is a summary of a one-year effort on modeling air plasma actuators by the PI's research team and collaborators. Plasma actuators have become the key enabler for boundary layer flow control especially when the device needs to be surface compliant. While the effects of these actuators are striking for low speeds, their efficacy becomes very limited for a wide range of flow speeds due to the lack of understanding of the multiphysics controlling adjustable authority of such devices. In our previous effort we have demonstrated the prediction capability of module-based multiscale ionized gas (MIG) flow finite-element code for mitigating inert gas flow separation using rf-driven dielectric barrier discharge. In this effort we: (1) develop multi- dimensional first principles based N2/02 air chemistry models for the non- equilibrium real gas discharge, and (2) implement it in a finite element framework to predict plasma discharge characteristics and its associated electric force generation over a three-dimensional conical forebody geometry. To our knowledge, such detailed plasma kinetics based effort has not been reported before. During the development of this project we have worked in close collaboration with RBAC/AFRL researchers to integrate MIG results with FDL3DI code and to simulate electrodynamic mitigation over practical surface.