Investigation on small scale DBD plasma actuator on vehicle spoiler in inducing airflow

• Main Author: Mohd Ridzuan Tan, Nurfarah Diana
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/28256/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=123828

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator has become the well-known tools in the aerodynamics flow control applications. DBD plasma actuator have no moving parts as it only involves in ionizarion of flow stream, fast reaction, flexible and amazingly low in mass making it a good alternative to hydraulic based control system. In vehicle spoilers, mechanical designs were used which are heavy and adds noise on the airfoil. The mechanical design are also complicated. Thus, DBD plasma application on vehicle spoiler was proposed to replace the usage of mechanical design. The research in this thesis aims to investigate the usage of low cost DBD plasma actuator on vehicle spoiler model. Both numerical and experimental work were performed. Preliminary studies to investigate the characteristics of DBD plasma were first conducted. The numerical simulation model were developed with the DBD plasma is modelled as the source term using ANSYS-Fluent software. The geometry domain of the vehicle spoiler is based on NACA 4418 airfoil. The numerical results in terms of velocity pattern and aerodynamic performance were obtained with and without DBD plasma effect. The simulation results suggest that there is 3.4% reduction of coefficient of drag (CD) with DBD plasma activated. The vehicle spoiler was fabricated based on NACA 4418 airfoil with the aid of three dimensional (3-D printing). Performance and visualization test of the fabricated vehicle spoiler were conducted in a wind tunnel. The experimental results suggest that, by having plasma actuator at the bottom of the spoiler, there is approximately 11.1 % decrease in the value coefficient of drag (CD). The results signifies the presence of DBD plasma actuator affects the airflow on a vehicle spoiler. As such, DBD plasma actuator can be considered as the flow controller that can be installed in automotive spoiler for better aerodynamic performance and able to substitute mechanical designs.