Active control with dielectric barrier discharge actuators applied to high-lift devices

Abstract

An experimental investigation examined the capability of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) actuators to control a high-lift device system. Aerodynamic tests investigated the potential of utilising the actuator to control the flap side-edge vortex flow field. Acoustic tests examined the attenuation of slat noise with a DBD actuator. The sparse knowledge related to the control of a vortex flow field with a DBD actuator necessitated a more fundamental study that used a NACA 0015 wing. From this study, it was shown that the application of control resulted in a more diffused tip vortex. The actuator's ability to control the evolving vortex flow field was weakly dependent on the Reynolds number but strongly dependent on the angle of attack. Consequently, a DBD actuator was applied to a flap side edge. However, it was concluded that the actuator had no discernible effect on the flow field due to its addition of momentum being too low to destabilise the formation of the flap side-edge vortex. The slat research concerned the attenuation of the leading-edge component of high-lift device noise. At an angle of attack of two degrees, several tonal noise components with broadband content appeared in the slat noise spectrum. These noise features were successfully suppressed with a DBD actuator operating in open-loop control. For closedloop control, a quasi-static feedback controller was implemented. Comparable levels of performance were obtained for both control methods with more than a 20 dB reduction achieved in the dominant tonal noise feature. The research conducted shed new light on the application of DBD actuators to control the high-lift device system. However, further research is needed if the device is to be utilised to control flap side-edge flow field. The attenuation of slat tonal noise with broadband content was achieved with the actuator.

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record