Journal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization, 2015, 3, 22-34 Published Online January 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jfcmv http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jfcmv.2015.31003 How to cite this paper: Choi, K.-S., Jukes, T.N., Whalley, R.D., Feng, L.H., Wang, J.J., Matsunuma, T. and Segawa, T. (2015) Plasma Virtual Actuators for Flow Control. Journal of Flow Control, Measurement & Visualization, 3, 22-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jfcmv.2015.31003 Plasma Virtual Actuators for Flow Control Kwing-So Choi 1* , Timothy N. Jukes 2 , Richard D. Whalley 3 , Lihao Feng 4 , Jinjun Wang 4 , Takayuki Matsunuma 5 , Takehiko Segawa 5 1 Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK 2 Dyson Technology Ltd., Malmesbury, UK 3 School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK 4 Fluid Mechanics Key Laboratory of Education Ministry, Beihang University, Beijing, China 5 Energy Technology Research Institute, AIST, Tsukuba, Japan Email: * kwing-so.choi@nottingham.ac.uk Received 30 October 2014; accepted 23 December 2014; published 15 January 2015 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuators are all-electric devices with no moving parts. They are made of a simple construction, consisting only of a pair of electrodes sandwiching a di- electric sheet. When AC voltage is applied, air surrounding the upper electrode is ionized, which is attracted towards the charged dielectric surface to form a wall jet. Control of flow over land and air vehicles as well as rotational machinery can be carried out using this jet flow on demand. Here we review recent developments in plasma virtual actuators for flow control that can replace con- ventional actuators for better aerodynamic performance. Keywords Flow Control, DBD Plasma, Actuators, Aerodynamics, Drag Reduction, Turbulence 1. Introduction Dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma actuators are unique devices that are useful for flow control applica- tions. They are all-electric devices with a simple construction, consisting only of a pair of electrodes sandwich- ing a dielectric sheet. When AC voltage is applied, air surrounding the upper electrode is ionized, which is at- tracted towards the charged dielectric surface to form a wall jet [1]-[3]. Figure 1 shows a typical configuration of an asymmetric DBD plasma actuator, showing the region of the plasma and the direction of induced flow (to the right in this figure). The flow velocity could reach to 10 m/s. The induced flow will develop into a wall jet during a continuous operation of plasma actuators, as shown in Figure 2 [4]. Strong entrainment towards the * Corresponding author.