Simulation and laboratory investigation of ionic wind induced by corona discharge

Ice-free areas, also called air gaps, along ice-covered insulators play an important role on their flashover performance. When the voltage applied across a gap is beyond its corona onset voltage, corona discharge and partial arcs occur. This causes phenomena such as Joule heating and ionic wind, to appear. Ionic wind changes the heat transfer coefficient and therefore affects the growth of icicles. The objective of this paper is to investigate the ionic wind induced by corona discharge in a point-plane geometric configuration. To validate the simulations, experimental measurements were carried out at INGIVRE laboratories at UQAC. The measured and simulated results were found to closely match.