Streamer inhibition for improving force and electric wind produced by DBD actuators

Abstract

The use of thin wires from 13 to 300 µm in diameter as the exposed electrode of a surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuator is experimentally investigated by electrical and optical diagnostics, electrohydrodynamic force measurements and produced electric wind characterization from time-averaged and time-resolved measurements. The streamer inhibition and glow discharge enhancement due to the use of a thin wire active electrode fully modify the topology and the temporal behaviour of the thrust and the electric wind production. With a typical plate-to-plate DBD, the electric wind velocity increases during the negative going cycle. With a wire-to-plate design, both positive and negative going-cycle discharges result in an electric wind velocity increase. The four main quantitative results are as follows: (1) for a power consumption of 1 W cm−1, the force is increased from 65 to 95 mN m−1 when a 13 µm wire is used, (2) this corresponds to a 15% electric wind velocity enhancement, (3) electromechanical efficiency can be increased from 0.1% to 0.25%, (4) these improvements are applied for definition of a new multi-DBD design plasma actuator that allows us to produce a mean velocity of 10.5 m s−1.