Comparative study of corona discharge simulation techniques for electrode configurations inducing non-uniform electric fields

Numerical modeling of corona discharges has followed the same set of procedures for many years. Corona discharges on large scales are modeled only for ion drift, neglecting ionization. Studies of the ionization zone are often conducted in uniform axisymmetric configurations. However, in configurations that induce non-uniform electric fields, a combination of the two procedures is necessary to accurately capture the discharge physics and ion distribution. The present study conducts numerical simulations of a wire-cylinder corona using both the models and demonstrates the necessity of including the ionization physics to obtain improved accuracy, particularly in the presence of non-uniform electric fields.