LAUSR

Abstract The electrical and mechanical characteristics of a cylindrical electrohydrodynamic pump are discussed in this paper. The air flow in this pump is produced by the surface dielectric barrier discharge generated between two strip electrodes attached to a hollow dielectric cylinder. The pump characteristics are predicted by simulating the ionized electric field (non-thermal plasma) and the air flow. A quasi-stationary plasma model is approximate and involves two ionic species. However, their full spatial and temporal distributions are calculated by solving the Poisson and charge transport equations using the Finite Element Method. The pump electrical (electric power) and mechanical (body force, velocity distribution, volume flow rate, output mechanical power, efficiency) parameters are presented for different magnitudes of ac voltage, its frequency, pump geometry and operating conditions. Simulations were based on combination of the COMSOL and ANSYS/FLUENT commercial software.