Characteristics Of Ion Wind Thruster In Corona Discharge Under Different Dielectric Conditions

Ion wind is a phenomenon of gas directional flow caused by corona discharge,also known as the Biefeld-Brown effect.Due to its advantages such as low power consumption,low noise,and no mechanical moving parts,ion wind has achieved a series of important breakthroughs and widespread attention in recent years in plasma thrusters,solid-state aircraft,and micro-aircraft.The existing theory of ion wind believes that the thrust comes from the space charge effect,but the theoretical model based on this differs greatly from the experimental values and cannot unify the results under various experimental conditions.Few studies have pointed out that the phenomenon may be related to the participation of electrons,but current research lacks corresponding experimental evidence.Therefore,this paper conducts a study on the characteristics of ion wind thrusters under different gas media conditions based on the differences in properties such as electronegativity,ion migration rate,viscosity,and density.The specific works are as follows:(1)By designing the corona discharge system,measurement system,and gas circuit system,an experimental platform for ion wind characteristics under different gas media has been developed.The platform realizes the measurement of weak ion wind thrust,in-situ measurement of ion wind speed,large-scale pressure control,and voltage and current control and detection,meeting the experimental requirements for gas media switching.(2)Investigated the ion wind characteristics of corona discharge in different gas media.The ion wind thrust and wind speed in air,nitrogen,and helium were measured using experimental methods.We studied the variation of ion wind thrust with discharge current,as well as the variation of thrust to power ratio and wind speed with discharge voltage.In the three types of gas media,the thrust of ion wind shows a saturation trend as the current increases,and the saturation points of different gas media are different.Among them,the saturation thrust in air is the highest,with a positive corona saturation thrust of 11.76 mN;The power to work ratio of ion wind decreases nonlinearly with the increase of voltage,while the speed of air descent is the slowest and shows a saturation trend;The wind speed of the ion wind first increases and then decreases with the increase of voltage,with the maximum wind speed of the ion wind in helium reaching 4.4 m/s.Due to the inability of existing theoretical models to reasonably explain the above phenomena,this article proposes that these phenomena are closely related to properties such as electron participation,gas viscosity,and density.(3)Investigated the characteristics of ion wind under different pressure conditions.Based on the theoretical foundation of the second work,further research was conducted on the characteristics of ion wind in different gas media under low-pressure environments.The changes in ion wind thrust with pressure were analyzed for air,nitrogen,and carbon dioxide.In all three gas media,the ion wind thrust increased with increasing pressure and showed a tendency to saturate under different pressure conditions.The thrust power ratio of ion wind in air and carbon dioxide under different pressure conditions was a focal point of this study.The experimental results showed that ion wind had the advantage of extremely low energy consumption.Therefore,in the future,it is possible to consider changing the electrode structure or studying the performance of ion wind in mixed gases to conduct a more in-depth exploration of plasma thrusters in low-pressure environments.