Effect of laminar and turbulent flow on the collective motion of plasma microdischarges at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is used for many important applications in various sectors of science and technology. For example, for ozone generation, surface modification of polymers, in plasma medicine, and for decomposition of heavy volatile organic compounds. Nowadays, one of the actual problems is getting of uniformity of discharge distribution for high quality treatment of materials surfaces. To achieve uniform distribution of the discharge, several methods are available, one is to use different types of noble gases, and another is to use AC power supply with frequency varied in wide range. But besides this, another of the potential methods for obtaining a uniformly distributed discharge is to blow through the discharge gap flow of air. This method was used in this paper to conduct experiments which consisted of oscilloscoping voltage and current values, high-speed imaging, also gas flow simulation for comparison with the experiments. The obtained results show the dynamics of microdischarge motion in laminar and turbulent flow regimes, which supported by flow simulation.