The role of the photoionization in the numerical modeling of the DBD plasma actuator

Abstract

An effective parallel comprehensive, physically based numerical model of an asymmetric dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator in air, which takes into account the photoionization mechanism, has been developed for multiprocessor computations. Using the developed model the propagation of the cathodedirected streamer driven by 4ns positive pulse has been analyzed. The streamer parameters have been compared to ones computed using the concept of artificial plasma generation. It has been shown that the streamer, computed based on the photoionization model, is several times thicker than one computed based on the artificial plasma. The maximum electric field at the streamer head is lower for the case of photoionization.