Turbulent flow drag reduction
AssigneeAirbus UK Limited
InventorsSimon J Scott, Graham A Johnson, Edward Thornton
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Abstract
The present invention relates to apparatus for influencing fluid flow over a surface, and more particularly, but not exclusively, to turbulent boundary layer flow drag reduction for an aircraft. The present invention provides such apparatus including a plasma generator comprising a first electrode and a signal generator, the apparatus being operable to drive the first electrode with a pulsed signal generated by the signal generator thereby to cause a change in direction of the flow of the fluid over the surface.
Claims29
Apparatus for influencing boundary layer fluid flow over a surface, the apparatus including a plasma generator comprising:
- a first electrode, said first electrode comprising first and second elongate elements;
- and
- a signal generator for driving the first electrode with a pulsed signal and for causing said fluid to move in a direction from one of said elongate elements to the other of said elongate elements, wherein said first elongate element receives a first pulse and the second elongate element receives a second pulse after a time interval at least as long as the time taken for fluid to travel between the first and second elongate elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.