Unipolar wire-to-plane corona-a definitive computation

It is shown that the unipolar wire-to-plane space charge problem can be calculated for wires of small radius, using bipolar cylindrical coordinates and an iterative technique. Proper attention must be paid to the dilute charge density at large distances and to careful handling of the transport equation. It is found that the voltage falls off asymptotically, as predicted by Felici, that the experimental results are reproduced, and that the charge density varies strongly around the wire, both when heavy injection occurs and for thicker wires. This calculation should serve as a benchmark for the more approximate methods needed to handle more complicated transmission line geometries