Three-ion model of EHD flows in the “wire-over-plane” electrode system

Abstract

The results of numerical simulation of the complete system of electrohydrodynamic equations are presented for a dielectric liquid containing three kinds of ions, namely, two kinds arising owing to impurity molecule dissociation and the third kind arising owing to appearance of ions from liquid molecules with the electron-donor properties in near-electrode reactions. An analysis of the simulation results shows that a small jet of injected ions rapidly recombines with counterions under the conditions of weak injection; therefore, the jet of space charge differs significantly from the injected ion jet. This difference disappears under the conditions of strong injection. The flow structure is in the close correspondence with the results revealed experimentally.