Performance Evaluation of a Triangular-Prism-Slit Electrode Pair as an Electro-Conjugate Fluid Jet Generator

Electro-conjugate fluid (ECF) is a dielectric and functional fluid, which generates a powerful jet when electrodes inserted into it are subjected to a constant voltage of less than one thousand volts. As one essential research field on ECF, researchers have been conducting the study on electrodes. Several structures, e.g. planar parallel rod-like electrode array, ring-needle electrode pair and triangular-prism-slit (TPS) electrode pair, were proposed. Among them, the TPS electrode structure is often thought as the most promising candidate for future ECF applications thanks to its great merits of combining easy fabrication and relatively high performance. In this paper, in order to evaluate performance of the TPS electrode pair, a novel modular ECF-jet generator capable of independently adjusting alignment and gap of each electrode is designed. By utilizing it, the relationship between output pressure and parameters of the TPS electrode pair, including thickness, slit width, tip angle, electrode gap and alignment, are obtained.