Study on improving efficiency of a plasma synthetic jet through dynamic pressure supplemental air

Abstract

Abstract To improve efficiency of a plasma synthetic jet (PSJ) under the high frequency actuation mode we investigated the effect of the pressure of supplemental air on efficiency of a PSJ actuator. First, the analytic model of the air supplement PSJ is established to analysis the effect of the air supplement pressure on the jet velocity of the PSJ. The theory analysis shows that the jet peck velocity and average velocity is increased dramatically. Furthermore, to reflect the efficiency performance of a PSJ in such mode, the average transform efficiency of the energy is used as an index which is calculated by the measured average jet speed and average discharging power consumption. The results show that the discharging parameters fluctuate dramatic in different actuation cycles in the high frequency actuation mode. And the average transform efficiency can be used to evaluate the efficiency in such mode. As the pressure of supplemental air increase, the average discharging power consumption decrease by up to 45.3% while the jet enhancement rate remains above 9% constantly. Overall the average transform efficiency is boosted by 1-2 orders of magnitude. The research reveals that the supplemental air can keep the gas discharging stable to improve the jet performance, and increase the efficiency of the PSJ.