Mixing enhancement for supersonic mixing layer by using plasma synthetic jet

Abstract

Mixing enhancement for supersonic mixing layer is of great importance for developing scramjet engine. The growth rate of supersonic mixing layer is smaller than that of subsonic mixing layer. As the compressibility increases, the mixing enhancement becomes more difficult. Plasma synthetic jet is regarded as a promising flow control technology. The plasma synthetic jet generator can produce high energy jet. This generator has no moving parts and does not need additional gas source. It is the first time that plasma synthetic jet has been used to enhance the mixing in supersonic mixing layers. The influence of plasma synthetic jet on the supersonic mixing layer is investigated experimentally and numerically. The experiments are conducted in the low noise supersonic mixing layer wind tunnel. The Mach number of upper stream and lower stream are 1.37 and 2.39 respectively. The convective Mach number of this wind tunnel is 0.32. The plasma synthetic jet actuators are installed in the splitter plate. The distance between the jet hole and the splitter plate end is 15 mm. The nanoparticle-based planar laser scattering (NPLS), particle image velocimetry (PIV) and schlieren are used to obtain the response of the supersonic mixing layer to single pulse plasma synthetic jet perturbation. The NPLS successfully captures the large-scaled vortex structures induced by the plasma synthetic jet in the supersonic mixing layers. The effect of plasma synthetic jet is remarkable. The schlieren images show the process of the perturbation. An oblique shock wave is generated when the jet is ejected. The PIV is employed to obtain the influence of plasma synthetic jet on the velocity field. The <i>y</i>-velocity standard deviation increases due to the perturbation. The actuators’ mixing enhancement effects and actuators’ performances at three locations are investigated by two-dimensional numerical simulation. The three actuators are located on the upper, bottom and end surface of splitter plate respectively. The numerical simulation results show that the mixing layer thickness is increased by the plasma synthetic jet perturbation. There are two mechanisms of perturbations while actuators are located at different positions. The actuators installed on the upper and bottom surface of splitter plate influence the mixing layer through perturbing the upper and lower stream respectively. The actuator installed at the end of splitter plate affects the mixing layer directly. The response time of supersonic mixing layers to the perturbation of the actuator installed at the end of splitter plate is shorter than those of the others. The performance of each actuator is sensitive to the location.