Effect of actuating voltage and discharge gap on plasma assisted detonation initiation process

The influence of actuating voltage and discharge gap on plasma assisted detonation initiation by alternating current dielectric barrier discharge was studied in detail.A loose coupling method was used to simulate the detonation initiation process of a hydrogen–oxygen mixture in a detonation tube under different actuating voltage amplitudes and discharge gap sizes.Both the discharge products and the detonation forming process assisted by the plasma were analyzed.It was found that the patterns of the temporal and spatial distributions of discharge products in one cycle keep unchanged as changing the two discharge operating parameters.However,the adoption of a higher actuating voltage leads to a higher active species concentration within the discharge zone,and atom H is the most sensitive to the variations of the actuating voltage amplitude among the given species.Adopting a larger discharge gap results in a lower concentration of the active species,and all species have the same sensitivity to the variations of the gap.With respect to the reaction flow of the detonation tube,the corresponding deflagration to detonation transition（DDT） time and distance become slightly longer when a higher actuating voltage is chosen.The acceleration effect of plasma is more prominent with a smaller discharge gap,and the benefit builds gradually throughout the DDT process.Generally,these two control parameters have little effect on the amplitude of the flow field parameters,and they do not alter the combustion degree within the reaction zone.

Experimental study on plasma actuation characteristics of nanosecond pulsed dielectric barrier discharge

Combining high-speed schlieren technology and infrared imaging technology,related research has been carried out on the influence of parameters such as actuation voltage,repetition frequency,and electrode size of an actuator on the discharge characteristics,induced flow field characteristics,and thermal characteristics of nanosecond pulsed dielectric barrier discharge.The results show that increasing the value of the actuation voltage can significantly increase the actuation intensity,and the plasma discharge area is significantly extended.Increasing the repetition frequency can increase the number of discharges per unit time.Both will cause more energy input and induce more changes in the flow field.The effect of temperature rise is more significant.The width of the covered electrode will affect the potential distribution during the discharge process,which in turn will affect the extension process of the plasma discharge filament.Under the same actuation intensity,the wider the covered electrode,the larger range the induced flow field and temperature rise is.Preliminary experimental analyses of high-frequency actuation characteristics,temperature field characteristics,flow field characteristics and actuation parameter settings provide support for the parameter selection and partial mechanism analysis of plasma anti-icing.

Size effect on the static behavior of electrostatically actuated microbeams

We present a new analytical model for electrostatically actuated microbeams to explore the size effect by using the modified couple stress theory and the minimum total potential energy principle. A material length scale parameter is introduced to represent the size-dependent characteristics of microbeams. This model also accounts for the nonlinearities associated with the mid-plane stretching force and the electrostatical force. Numerical analysis for microbeams with clamped-clamped and cantilevered conditions has been performed. It is found that the intensity of size effect is closely associated with the thickness of the microbeam,and smaller beam thickness displays stronger size effect and hence yields smaller deffection and larger pull-in voltage. When the beam thickness is comparable to the material length scale parameter,the size effect is significant and the present theoretical model including the material length scale parameter is adequate for predicting the static behavior of microbeam-based MEMS.