An Investigation on the application of DBD plasma actuators as pressure sensors

Abstract

This paper investigates the possibility of using a Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD) plasma aerodynamic actuator to measure ambient pressure conditions. Previous studies of DBD actuators have focused on the use of plasma as a flow control device, which have highlighted the change in the plasma formation at low ambient pressure and the mechanism for plasma wind production. The modification of the plasma formation process has significant influence on the plasma driving circuit and therefore can be used to extract data regarding the local flow conditions. The time scales of the plasma formation orders of magnitude smaller than that of the flow structures. Sufficient sensitivity of the plasma driving circuit to the ambient pressure implies that this phenomenon could prove useful for application of this technology as a pressure sensor, for relatively high bandwidth measurements.