Numerical Technique for Implementation of SDBD Plasma Actuators for Flow Control Applications in Wing Surfaces

In the subsequent study a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis technique to simulate a plasma actuator over an airfoil Re = O(20⁵) is presented. The technique uses a two-dimensional Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Method coupled to the Kloker plasma-fluid model to study the effects of a Single Dielectric-Barrier Discharge (SDBD) as a Plasma Actuator. The CFD technique have been implemented in OpenFOAM platform for two setups, when: i) the actuator was located at x/c = 0.03 and ii) x/c = 0.1 of the chord length of the airfoil. The magnitude of the body force is equivalent to the results obtained by Hofkens and the actuator operates for both cases in the continuous and in the burst mode. To perform the numerical technique for a stable solution in OpenFOAM, various numerical procedures were tested, including a mixed solver between PISO and SIMPLE algorithm better known as pimpleFoam with nCorrector. The cases were solved in parallel on distributed processors using OpenMPI implementation and the accuracy of the results are strongly depends on the choice of grid size, y-plus, wall function and discretization scheme. The results indicate a high potential, suitability and great capabilities of this numerical technique implemented in OpenFOAM platform for free instability flow simulation.