Experimental investigation of lift enhancement on flying wing aircraft using plasma actuator

Wind tunnel experiments have been conducted for a flying wing aircraft to investigate the effect of plasma actuator arrangement position and control parameters on the lift enhancement of the flying wing aircraft. The AC and nanosecond plasma power have been used separately to study the effect of plasma actuator control parameters on the lift enhancement of the aircraft. The result indicates that the plasma actuator can efficiently increase the maximum lift coefficient and defer the occurrence of the stall with small impacts on drag coefficient of the flying wing aircraft. The actuators arranged parallel to the aircraft leading edge are effective, and they placed at leading edge generate the best lift enhancement. In the experiment condition, the aircraft maximum lift coefficient increases by 39.5%, and the stall angle is postponed by 8 degrees due to the plasma actuator. In nanosecond pluse discharge mode, the input frequency of the plasma actuator has significant impact on the aircraft lift enhancement, while the discharge voltage has a negligible impact. In AC discharge mode, the input duty cycle of plasma actuator has a certain impact on aircraft lift enhancement, and a excessive large one should not be chosen.