Movement of air in the electric wind of the corona discharge

The mechanism of gas movement in the electric wind is considered herein, and an approximate theory presented which relates relevant electrical and aerodynamic quantities. Among others, these relationships are shown to hold for an electrostatic blower, operating on the electric-wind principle: Gas velocity is a linear function of voltage and is proportional to the square root of current; if the density of the gas is not too low, the efficiency of electrokinetic conversion near sparkover is proportional to the square root of the density, and the velocity at constant current is independent of the density; near sparkover efficiency is independent of voltage; velocity increases slowly as additional blowers are stacked in series; the ozone concentration of blower air resulting from the corona discharge is an increasing function of electric-wind velocity. The forms of the equations relating these variables are found to hold in a variety of cases, even though assumed boundary conditions are not observed experimentally. The practical utility of an electrostatic blower is limited by an efficiency of operation in the neighborhood of 1%.