Influence of needle electrode arrangement on gas transportation performance of the multi-needle ionic wind pump

Abstract

The ionic wind pump with multi-electrode arrangement is helpful in enlarging its application. However, the arrangement has an inherent mutual interference among the electrodes during discharging process, which have a vital influence on the transportation performance of the ionic wind pump. Meanwhile, the relevance between the mutual interference and the intensity of the ionic wind has not been clearly revealed. In this study, the gas transportation experiments of the multi-needle electrode ionic wind pump are conducted. The intensity variation of the ionic wind with mutual interference is observed in the experiments. A simulation model based on the plasma transportation is proposed to describe the multi-needle discharging process with mutual interference effect. The EHD force is used as the indicator parameter for the intensity of the ionic wind. The experimental results show that the measured mass flow rate of the ionic wind pump is enhanced under dual-row needles and weakened under triple-row needles. Based on the simulation results, the above phenomenon is attributed to variations of the space charge and electric field induced by multi-needle discharging. The added needle electrodes reduce the electric field intensity per needle while increasing the net negative charge in the space. Due to the discharging interference among the needles, the increment of the net negative charge is not proportional to the number of needles. As a result, comparing the three arrangements from the simulations, the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force of each needle, which is the electric field intensity multiplying by space charge density, increases approximately 45.8% under dual needles and decreases approximately 38.1% under triple needles. The conclusions obtained in this paper can help to guide the design and optimization of the multi-needle ionic wind pump.