A Study of DC Surface Plasma Discharge in Absence of Free Airflow: Ionic Wind Velocity Profile

In our study we are interested with the DC (Direct Current) electric corona discharge created between two wire electrodes. We present experimental results related to some electroaerodynamic actuators based on the DC corona discharge at the surface of a dielectric material. We used different geometrical forms of dielectric surface such as a plate, a cylinder and a wing of aircraft of type NACA 0015. We present the current density-electric filed characteristics for different cases in order to determine the discharge regimes. The corona discharge produces non-thermal plasma so that it is called plasma discharge. Plasma discharge creates a tangential ionic wind above the surface at the vicinity of the wall. We have measured the ionic wind induced by the corona discharge in absence of free external airflow, we give the ionic wind velocity profiles for different surface forms and we compare the actuators effect based on the span of the ionic wind velocity values. We notice that the maximum ionic wind velocity is obtained with the NACA profile, which shows the effectiveness of this actuator for the airflow control