Successively accelerated ionic wind with integrated dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma actuator for low-voltage operation

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force is used for active control of fluid motion and for the generation of propulsive thrust by inducing ionic wind with no moving parts. We propose a method of successively generating and accelerating ionic wind induced by surface dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD), referred to as a DBD plasma actuator with multiple electrodes. A conventional method fails to generate unidirectional ionic wind, due to the generation of a counter ionic-wind with the multiple electrodes DBD plasma actuator. However, unidirectional ionic wind can be obtained by designing an applied voltage waveform and electrode arrangement suitable for the unidirectional EHD force generation. Our results demonstrate that mutually enhanced EHD force is generated by using the multiple electrodes without generating counter ionic-wind and highlights the importance of controlling the dielectric surface charge to generate the strong ionic wind. The proposed method can induce strong ionic wind without a high-voltage power supply, which is typically expensive and heavy, and is suitable for equipping small unmanned aerial vehicles with a DBD plasma actuator for a drastic improvement in the aerodynamic performance.