Electrical characteristics of wire-to-wire dielectric barrier discharges. (2nd August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Xu, Haofeng; Gomez-Vega, Nicolas; Wilde, Nicholas D; Kambhampaty, Jayaprakash D; Barrett, Steven R H
• Is Part Of: Plasma sources science & technology. Volume 30:Number 8(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-08-02
• Subjects: dielectric barrier discharge -- plasma propulsion -- aerospace plasmas; Plasma (Ionized gases) -- Periodicals; 530.44
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/ac0a45
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0963-0252

Abstract

Abstract: A wire-to-wire dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is a novel method of plasma generation that has been demonstrated as an effective ion source for electroaerodynamic ion propulsion devices. A wire-to-wire DBD comprises two parallel wires spaced less than a millimeter apart: an insulated high voltage wire forms the encapsulated electrode and a thin uninsulated wire forms the exposed electrode. This electrode arrangement is lightweight, simple to manufacture, and has low aerodynamic drag; these properties make it suitable for ion generation in atmospheric ion propulsion and other potential applications. We performed a parametric experimental exploration of this type of plasma source using a sinusoidal driving signal, measuring power draw and discharge characteristics over a range of electrical, geometric, and dielectric material parameters. We find that it has similar electrical characteristics to volume DBDs. We provide a model for predicting the power draw to within 0.9 W m −1 with a correlation of r 2 = 0.99 between model and experiments.