Gasdynamic Flow Control by Superfast Local Heating in a Strongly Nonequilibrium Pulse Plasma

TL;DR

This review explores how ultrafast local heating in pulsed plasma can control high-speed gas flows, including shock waves, boundary layers, and flow separation, with applications in aerodynamics and anti-icing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of physical mechanisms and recent experimental examples of gasdynamic flow control using nanosecond pulsed plasma heating.

Findings

Ultrafast plasma heating effectively modifies shock wave configurations.

Plasma control influences boundary layer separation and laminar-turbulent transition.

Applications include flow trajectory control and anti-icing techniques.

Abstract

Paper presents a review of modern works on the gasdynamic flow control using a heat release in highly nonequilibrium pulsed plasma. The major attention is paid to the effects based on ultrafast (on nanosecond time scale at atmospheric pressure) local heating of the gas, since at present the main successes in high-speed flow control using gas discharges are associated with namely this thermal effect. The physical mechanisms that control the interaction of the discharges with gas flows are considered in detail. The first part of the review briefly describes the most popular approaches in plasma aerodynamics for the pulsed localized energy deposition: nanosecond surface barrier discharges, pulsed spark discharges, and nanosecond/femtosecond laser discharges. The mechanisms of ultrafast heating of air at high electric fields realized in these discharges, as well as during the decay of a discharge plasma, are analyzed. The second part of the review contains numerous examples of plasma control of gasdynamic flows. The control of the shock waves configuration in front of a supersonic object and control of its trajectory; the control of quasistationary separated flows and layers; the control of a laminar-turbulent transition; the control of static and dynamic separation of the boundary layer at large angles of attack; as well as the operation of plasma actuators in various weather conditions; and the use of plasma as an anti-icing tool for flying objects are analyzed.