Effect of the duty cycle on the spark-plug plasma synthetic jet actuator

A promising novel actuator called Spark-Plug Plasma Synthetic Jet (SPSJ) has been developed in Atmospheric Plasma Research Laboratory at Nigde University. It generates electrothermally high synthetic jet velocity by using high voltage. SPSJ actuator can be utilized to be an active flow control device having some advantages such as no moving parts, low energy consumption and easy to integrate the system. This actuator consists of two main components: semi-surface spark plug (NGK BUHW) as an anode electrode and a cap having an orifice as a cathode electrode. The cap, having a jet exit orifice diameter of 2 mm, has diameter of 4.4 mm and height of 4.65 mm. This study presents the characteristics of SPSJ actuator by using the hot wire anemometer in order to approximately determine jet velocity in quiescent air. Peak velocity as high as 180 m/s was obtained for f(e) = 100 and duty cycle 50%. The flow visualization indicated that the actuator's jet velocity is enough to penetrate the developed boundary layer.