Characterization of surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) based on PI/Al₂O₃ nanocomposite

Abstract

Surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) is widely applied in the field of active flow control. Its carrier is usually called plasma actuator (PA). However, it has a key drawback of short discharge lifetime due to the dielectric degradation under plasma processing. In this paper, polyimide (PI) film incorporated with Al2O3 nanoparticles is fabricated and used as dielectric of PA. Dielectric material, plasma, surface temperature, discharge characteristics as well as its performance are experimentally studied and compared with those of a conventional pure PI based control actuator. The results show that at sine peak to peak voltage of 8 kV and 6 kHz frequency, the force efficiency of new designed actuator is 2.5 times higher than that of the control actuator after 30 h discharge. Besides, the discharge lifetime is also 3.2 times as long. In the discharge region, the surface of the control actuator appears serious dielectric degradation, which is accompanied by heat accumulation as well as an increase of gas temperature and electron temperature. While for the new actuator, after selective plasma etching, the inorganic Al2O3 nanoparticles can continuously resist the discharge plasma and contributes to effective heat dissipation and more stable plasma parameters.

Experimental Study on Anti-Icing Performance of NS-DBD Plasma Actuator

“…Surface temperature is measured using a FLIR infrared (IR) imager (SC7300M, FLIR Systems, Wilsonville, OR, USA). The measurement range of the IR camera is −20 • C to 2000 • C. The surface emissivity of the Kapton is set as 0.83 [31]. The surface temperature of the exposed copper electrode was not analyzed due to its relatively lower surface emissivity.…”

Characterization of DBD plasma actuator with ZnO nanowire arrays

“…The discharge current can be obtained by using a shunt resistor, and the streamer regime occurs with larger spikes during the positive-going voltage cycle whereas a glow regime with low spikes at the negativegoing cycle [9], which induces different mechanical performance during the two different cycles. The thermal effect of a dielectric is of importance for plasma actuator design and future applications, and Bian's study [36,37] found that the discharge lifetime of the actuator with Al 2 O 3 nanocomposite was expanded 3.2 times compared with the ordinary actuator by characterizing temperature. Moreover, the discharge characteristic can be visualized with the image, which can be calculated plasma length or plasma extension [23].…”

On the role of secondary electron emission in capacitively coupled radio‐frequency plasma sheath: A theoretical ground

“…In practical CCP applications, the boundary is not always perfect absorber as many of above models assumed. SEE on solid surface induced by either electron or ion is ubiquitous in many plasma apparatuses like Hall thruster, Langmuir probe, and dielectric barrier discharge, and so forth . In terms of CCP discharge between two metallic electrodes, ion‐induced secondary electron emission (ISEE) is more predominant and extensive amount of experimental and simulation works have been conducted to illustrate its influences.…”

“…Secondary electron emission (SEE) on solid surface induced by either electron or ion is ubiquitous in many plasma apparatuses like Hall thruster, Langmuir probe and dielectric barrier discharge, etc. [17][18][19][20] In terms of CCP discharge between two metallic electrodes, ion-induced SEE is more predominant and extensive amount of experimental and simulation works have been conducted to illustrate its influences. Early work of Misium et al involved SEE in their rf discharge model using fluid theory with constant secondary electron (SE) velocity.…”