PERFORMANCE OF A TWO STAGE ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC GAS PUMP WITH DIFFERENT POLARITIES

In this study, fluid flow induced by a two stage electrohydrodynamic (EHD) gas pump in a square channel has been evaluated by experimental measurement and numerical simulations. This study is implemented by a two stage EHD gas pump with different polarities for 24 emitting electrodes configuration to seek the relation between the number of stages and polarities. The EHD pump is evaluated for a wide range of operating voltages starting from 20 kV up to 28 kV for further improvement in its performance. To achieve the maximum enhancement, the emitting electrodes of the EHD gas pump are flush mounted on the channel walls so that the corona wind produced directly disturbs the boundary layer thickness and improves the heat transfer. This is leading to a higher velocity near the channel walls and resulting in an inverted parabolic velocity profile at the center of the channel, which is opposite to the fully developed velocity profile of a forced flow. Velocities are measured at three cross-sections along the tube length and then integrated to obtain the volume flow rate. The results show that EHD technique has a great potential for many engineering applications.