Numerical investigation of double sided plasma vortex generator in separation control

Abstract Control of flow separation is a great issue to deal with a moving body to ensure its proper aerodynamic characteristics. To achieve this, various methods including active and passive control are suggested depends upon the flow characteristics and the surface in which control is necessary. To make the better use of both active and passive method of flow control this article proposed a new type of double sided plasma actuator (DSPVG) to overcome the drag penalty of conventional vortex generators (VGs) that commonly used in controlling flow and to use actively control. In this regard, the effectiveness of DSPVG has been numerically and experimentally investigated in a separated flow region of a 20° diffuser of an open type tunnel. DSPVG is placed at the upstream of separation location normal to the surface as like as conventional VG except zero angle with flow direction. Both numerical and experimental results of DSPVG are compared with that of VG and baseline flow and better agreements are found. Moreover, DSPVG has shown better separation suppression ability than conventional VGs due to its dual vortices. It is found that DSPVG significantly delay the separation. A freestream flow of 4 m s −1 is used for experiments and numerical computations.