Numerical simulation on ionic wind in circular channels* *Project supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFB0406000) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51676036).

Abstract

Ionic wind induced by direct-current corona discharge has attracted considerable interest because of its low energy consumption, low noise emission, flexible designs, and lack of moving parts. The purpose of this study is to investigate the configuration parameters to improve the velocity of the ionic wind. Accordingly, this study develops a three-dimensional (3D) model of circular tube with multi-needle-to-mesh electrode configurations, in this model, the influences of various parameters were explored such as the mesh gap, the distribution of needle electrodes, the number of needle electrodes, and the radius of the circular channel. The numerical research results showed that the mesh gap, the distribution of needle electrodes, and the radius of the circular tube significantly affected the velocity of the ionic wind. When mesh gap is 12 mm, which indicates that there is an optimal mesh gap which can enhance the velocity of the ionic wind. What is more, changing the distribution of needle electrodes and increasing the number of needle electrodes can effectively improve the velocity of the ionic wind, the optimum distribution α of needle electrodes is 0.7–0.9, which greatly increase the velocity of the ionic wind. However, for multi-needle-to-mesh structure, the improvement of the radius of the circular channel is conducive to enhance the velocity and improve the velocity distribution.