Characteristics of ionic wind in needle-to-ring corona discharge

The characteristics of ionic wind of DC corona discharge are investigated in needle-to-ring configuration. The effects of the discharge parameters including the voltage polarity, the overvoltage and the electrode gap are studied experimentally. The results show that the ionic wind has a velocity of several m/s. The ionic wind in the center increases linearly with the overvoltage due to the larger Coulomb force obtained from the electric field and the slope of velocity overvoltage plot depends on the electrode gap. The ionic wind in the positive corona has a larger velocity in the central part while the ionic wind in negative corona distributes more homogeneously. But the voltage polarity has little influence on the conductance of the discharge channel. A theoretical description is deduced from the basic physics and can express well the correlations between the ionic wind velocity and the discharge parameters. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.