Development and characterization of plasma actuators for high-speed jet control

Active control of high Reynolds number and high-speed jets has been hampered due to the lack of suitable actuators. Some of the attributes that would make an actuator suitable for such flows are: high amplitude and bandwidth; small size for distribution around the jet; phase-locking ability for jet azimuthal mode forcing; and sufficient ruggedness for hot jets. We have been developing a class of actuators termed ‘localized arc filament plasma actuators,’ which possess such characteristics. In this paper, we present the development and characterization of these actuators as well as preliminary results on their applications in high Reynolds number Mach 0.9 and ideally expanded Mach 1.3 jets.