Electrical Model for Complex Surface DBD Plasma Sources

Electrical models can play a crucial role in the characterization, design, and definition of optimal operating conditions of nonthermal plasma sources in a wide field of applications. Various electrical models are available from the literature, with most modeling the behavior of volume dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma sources. Although electrical models for surface DBD plasma sources are presented from the plasma actuator community, these models are limited to simple and mostly linear surface DBD plasma sources. This study presents a new electrical model focusing on surface DBD plasma sources with complex electrode designs. The proposed model employs the ratio of the electrode surface into a discharging and nondischarging area to consider complex electrode designs, such as meshed and hexagonal electrodes. Microdischarges during plasma ignition phase have been modeled through the superposition of a discharge current to the displacement current. The proposed electrical model has been validated over a large range of operating conditions. It is shown that the simulated electrical characteristics using the developed model are in reasonable agreement with measurements.