Airflow impact on the collective behavior of microdischarges in DBD*

The study of microdischarge dynamics (MD) in dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) are gaining much attention due to high interest in the collective interaction of MD, memory effects and formation of self-organized patterns. In this work, the MD dynamics of atmospheric pressure air DBD were studied under the impact of forced external gas flow and natural convective flow. The discharge between rail electrodes in external airflow along the electrodes clarified the role of volume plasma and surface charges in the memory effect of MD[1]. The change in the gas flow regime from laminar to turbulent shows the complex dynamics of MD with trajectories downstream and upstream to the flow direction. The impact of convective flow due to the temperature gradient between discharge cell electrodes and ambient air was studied for parallel-plate electrode arrangement. It was shown that an increase in temperature during the discharge operation leads to an increase in MD number in the discharge gap. The convective gas flow velocity also increased at a higher thermal gradient, and MD channels follow the gas flow direction. The velocity of convective flow was estimated by the CFD simulation and compared with the mean velocity of MD channels obtained by the particle image velocimetry method.