Ionic wind produced by an electro-aerodynamic pump based on corona and dielectric barrier discharges

The present study aims at showing the ability of ac discharges to be used as fanless blower in a rectangular channel. First, a 10 mm-high channel is used with four different types of ac atmospheric air discharges: an ac wire-to-plate corona discharge, two different ac wire-to-plate dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) and a surface DBD. The electrical and mechanical characteristics of the four different discharges are investigated and compared. They highlight that the best geometrical configuration is the wire-to-plate DBD with a thick dielectric, that allowed us to induce ionic wind velocity up to 3.3 m/s and flow rate per unit spanwise length of 24 L per second per meter. Secondly, this optimized configuration is reduced in size (2 mm-high channel) and the effect of this downscaling on the plasma actuator performances is studied, showing that the efficiency decreases with the channel height.