Comparative study of corona discharge simulation techniques for electrode configurations inducing non-uniform electric fields

• Numerical modeling of coronas in wire-cylinder configurations which induce a non-uniform electric field are performed.
• Two modeling procedures are compared to analyze the validity of standard procedures for modeling corona discharges.
• Typical procedure of ignoring ionization is shown to be insufficient to accurately capture non-uniform conditions.
• The two models are characterized by analyzing their validity and accuracy for a range of geometrical conditions.

Numerical modeling of corona discharges has followed the same set of procedures for many years. Corona discharges on large scales are modeled only for ion drift, neglecting ionization. Studies of the ionization zone are often conducted in uniform axisymmetric configurations. However, in configurations that induce non-uniform electric fields, a combination of the two procedures is necessary to accurately capture the discharge physics and ion distribution. The present study conducts numerical simulations of a wire-cylinder corona using both the models and demonstrates the necessity of including the ionization physics to obtain improved accuracy, particularly in the presence of non-uniform electric fields.