Polarity Effect and Flow Characteristics of Wire-Rod Type Electrohydrodynamic Gas Pump

The electrohydrodynamic (EHD) flow characteristics for a wire to rod type EHD gas pump have been experimentally investigated. Experiments were conducted for DC negative and positive applied high voltage to a corona wire of diameter 0.24 mm from 0-24 kV, grounding rod electrode diameter from 1.5 mm to 3.1 mm and wire/rod electrode distance to pipe diameter ratio from 0.63 to 1.16. It was observed that the polarity plays an important role, where a negative high voltage generates a higher gas flow than that of a positive polarity. The results show that a maximum of 40 L/min of gas flow rate is generated at 0.37 W energy input when the pipe diameter is 20 mm with the corona wire electrode and grounding rod electrode gap distant set to 12.6 mm under negative applied voltage compared to 25 L/min at 0.23 W energy input for the positive case at the same specific energy density.