Performance of a Dielectric Barrier Discharger Plasma Actuator

This study deals with the use of the Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) actuators with various geometrical and electrical properties to obtain the optimum operating conditions that govern the performance of the surface DBD actuator. Experiments were carried out to investigate the required threshold voltage and the discharge power which aimed to study the relationship between the DBD plasma actuator properties (electrical properties, design parameters and supply voltage properties), the threshold voltage and the discharge power. Besides, the effective supply voltage and frequency range were also investigated. The theoretical analysis was carried out to find out the mathematical model describing the discharge power of the DBD actuator. A comparison study was done to validate the discharge power formula. The results obtained shown that the discharged power, of the DBD plasma actuator, was directly related to its design properties and the sinusoidal input voltage characteristics. It was also found that the experimental discharge power was slightly less than the theoretical discharge power.