Surface voltage characteristics in volume dielectric barrier discharge based ionic wind actuators

Abstract

This study investigates the surface charge characteristics of volumetric dielectric barrier discharge (VDBD) plasma actuators under varying excitation frequencies and voltage waveforms. Surface potential distributions were measured using a simplified V-dot probe, thereby elucidating the underlying mechanisms governing ionic-wind performance while concurrently characterizing the spatiotemporal evolution of surface charge accumulation and transport on the dielectric surface. The results demonstrate that accumulated surface charges continuously modulate the effective driving voltage between the exposed electrode and the dielectric surface, thereby governing discharge development throughout the operating cycle and providing a unified explanation for the frequency-dependent actuator performance, thrust saturation, and the finite effective actuation region. The results further reveal that the charging and discharging processes propagate sequentially from the exposed electrode toward the downstream region, governed jointly by the non-uniform electric field induced by the electrode configuration and the dynamically evolving charge-induced shielding effects. These findings provide new physical insight into the relationship among surface-charge transport, discharge evolution, and ionic-wind generation in VDBD plasma actuators.