Flow characteristics of dc wire-non-parallel plate electrohydrodynamic gas pumps

An experimental investigation has been conducted to study the effect of grounded electrode location and polarity on time averaged discharge current, velocity profile, volumetric flow rate and pressure generation for a wire-non-parallel plate type EHD gas pump. The experiments were conducted with two different electrode configurations for the negative and positive applied voltages from 0 to 14 kV at atmospheric pressure and room temperature, where air was used as the working fluid. The experimental results showed that: (1) a maximum gas velocity of 1.9 m/s corresponding to a volumetric flow rate of 44 l/min was observed; (2) the volumetric flow rate, gas velocity and pressure generation increased with increasing applied dc voltage or EHD number; (3) a non-linear relationship between the pressure generation and the gas velocity was observed and the flow generated was always turbulent or limited re-circulating laminar flow. The mechanism of unidirectional EHD generation will be discussed in detail.