Measurement of the surface charging of a plasma actuator using surface DBD

In order to quantify the surface charging of a plasma actuator using surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge, we propose a new equivalent circuit for this surface DBD and a new simple method allowing the measurement of the surface charging during the first half cycle and the discharging during the other half cycle. Using this method, we observed the temporal evolution of the total charge on the dielectric surface during an operation of a SDBD starting with positive cycle. We also observed the same phenomenon during an operation starting with a negative cycle. The comparison between these two observations suggests that the high electro-negativity of oxygen plays an important role in these discharges. Finally, we compare the total amount of charge transferred over a cycle under different experimental conditions and we find that the transfer is the lowest in oxygen and the highest in nitrogen. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.