Influence of high-voltage pulse parameters on the propagation of a plasma synthetic jet

In this work, a typical pin-to-pin plasma synthetic jet in static air is excited by a pulsed DC power supply. The influences of the pulse rising time, the amplitude and the repetition frequency of the pulse voltage on the jet flow have been investigated. First, using a high-speed Schlieren imaging technique, the induced shock waves and the fast jet flow generated by the plasma synthetic jet are characterized. With a deposited energy of 44 mJ per pulse, the velocity of the shock wave and the maximum velocity of the jet flow reach 320 m s−1 and 100 m s−1, respectively. Second, when the applied voltage increases from 12.8 kV to 16 kV, the maximum jet velocity increases from 66 m s−1 to 93 m s−1. On the other hand, as the pulse rising time varies from 50 ns to 500 ns, or the pulse repetition frequency increases from 5 Hz to 40 Hz, the jet velocity induced by the plasma synthetic jet is weakly dependent. In addition, a comparative study of the plasma synthetic jets using three commercial pulsed power supplies (XJ-15, NPG-18, and PG-30) is implemented. It reveals that the maximum jet velocity of 120 m s−1 is obtained in the case of PG-30, with the longest pulse rising time and the lowest breakdown voltage, while the maximum velocity of 33 m s−1 is detected in the case of NPG-18, even though it has the shortest pulse rising time and the highest breakdown voltage.