Experimental Study of Fluid Flow Around Cylinder in the Presence of EHD Actuators

The external flows around bluff bodies play an important role in industrial applications and have been studied by many researchers. The major problem in such studies is decreasing total drag. In this study experimental results of flow control over a cylindrical configuration by means of an EHD actuators represented. Wire-plate actuators were investigated in this study. This study performed by placing a cylindrical cross section in a wind tunnel and measuring pressures in several positions. Results are given in two ground electrode arrangements, In the first case whole surface of cylinder is covered with a flush mounted electrode as ground electrode and one or two wires electrodes positioned at distance from cylinder, In the second case, only 30 degrees of cylinder used as ground electrode. In all cases the wire electrode was set up in three different degrees from leading edge (i.e., 0, 50, 100) and three radial distance from the surface of the cylinder (i.e., h = 10, 20, 30 mm). The electrical fields were produced by means of a DC constant high voltage power supply. In this study experiments are limited to laminar flow around the cylinder with Reynolds number less than 1000. The experimental results show that, total drag reduction in the partly flush mounted plate electrode has better performance than the case which electrode covers all surface of the cylinder. Maximum total drag reduction in cathode, partly flush mounted plate electrode geometry at position of 100 from the leading edge, which reported to be about 8%.