Influence of capacitor energy on performance of a three-electrode plasma synthetic jet actuator

The influence of capacitor energy on characteristics of a three-electrode plasma synthetic jet actuator (PSJA) is experimentally investigated by schlieren method. Jet duration time and jet affected area are extracted by image processing. As normalized capacitor energy increases from 0.044 to 22.1, three flow field evolution patterns are presented. In the first pattern, only shock wave can be observed while no fluid is expelled out. In the second pattern, the jet is thin and weak, with a vortex pair ahead of it. The last pattern is characterized by a strong and bright jet. With capacitor energy increasing, peak jet front velocity increases proportionally on semilog coordinate, with a maximum of 230 m/s, while both maximum jet affected area and jet duration time first go up and then keep almost constant. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.