Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Actuator (PA) is a flow control device composed of a dielectric material sandwiched between an exposed electrode and a grounded electrode. One of the main challenges of the PA is its low energy efficiency. Previous studies have reported enhancements in induced flow and improvements in power efficiency through modifications to the electrode structure, such as serration of the exposed electrode, discretization of the grounded electrode, and multi-encapsulation. However, the focus of many previous studies has been the proposal of new electrode structures, with experimental conditions remaining narrow in scope. In this study, we focus on multi-encapsulation of electrodes and conduct experiments by parametrically varying the length and vertical position (thickness direction) of the discretized electrodes. As a result, although the arrangement and length of the discretized electrodes were found to influence the thrust-to-power ratio, no significant performance improvement was observed under the tested conditions.
KUGO et al. (Wed,) studied this question.