Comparative Analysis of PIV-Based and Model-Based Methods in Calculating Electrical Force Produced by a Blade-Plane Actuator

When a blade-plane actuator is subjected to a high voltage, an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force is exerted on the dielectric liquid to produce an electroconvective flow. Experimental estimation of the electrical force can be carried out through the momentum integration method based on the velocity fields of particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurements. It is a force-averaged approach which is conducted by integrating the instantaneous Navier-Stokes' momentum equation over a designated control volume. Theoretically, a new method inspired by turbulent plume model is proposed to estimate the EHD force through the axial velocity curve and half-width curve of the time-averaged field. It is found that the calculation error of this effective calculation is within an acceptable range when compared with results obtained by the PIV based method.