283 / 2022-03-15 02:26:39

Experiments on the thrust generation of ionic wind propulsion systems

Ionic Wind, EAD aircraft, thrust generation

A pair of asymmetrical electrodes under high voltage can produce an ionic wind and thrust. This phenomena was discovered by Brown and Biefeld in early 1920s. Electrical forces are able to accelerate ions in air. This has been proposed as an alternative method to today’s standard propelling airplanes. The main advantages of the proposed aircraft propulsion are: no moving parts, nearly silent and no combustion emissions.



In 2018 Barrett et al. reported the first flight of an airplane with solid-state propulsion based on ionic wind. This prototype airplane had a wingspan of 5 m, weight of about 2.5 kg, flight velocity of 5 m/s and thrust of 3.2 N based on DC voltage of 40 kV with electrical power of 600 W. They realized several free flights for more than 45 m with a duration of about 10 seconds. The applied electric power system consists of 225 V Li-Po battery packs, a resonant inverter, a high voltage transformer and two six-stage full wave Greinacher cascades generating DC voltages of +20 kV for the emitting electrodes and -20 kV for the collecting electrodes. One challenge for the future is to increase the achievable thrust which was 130 mN/m for the prototype airplane.



This paper reports about new experimental results on different electrode arrangements for generation of thrust by ionic wind. An electrode arrangement using different cylindrical collectors was identified which generates about 800 mN/m at 60 kV in combination with power savings in comparison with Barrett’s solution. In addition a NACA 2412 collector electrode and the thrust-to-power ratio resp. thrust density of the electrode arrangements were investigated for thruster frames with length of up to 4 m.



The discussion of the results is based on a literature survey and the next steps for developing an innovative electroaerodynamic aircraft will be described with respect to a flying wing concept.