High Force Density Multi-Stage Electrohydrodynamic Jets Using Folded Laser Microfabricated Electrodes

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-stage electrohydrodynamic jet device with laser microfabricated folded electrodes, achieving high force density and power output, advancing EHD actuator technology.

Contribution

It presents the first multi-stage, miniaturized EHD device with a novel folded electrode design, demonstrating improved power density and linear scaling of force with stages.

Findings

A three-stage device achieves high areal thrust and force density.

Force output scales nearly linearly with the number of stages.

Device lifetime validated for stainless-steel electrodes.

Abstract

The electrohydrodynamic (EHD) force produced by ions ejected from a corona plasma is a solid state, silent mechanism for accelerating air, useful for applications ranging from electronics cooling to flying microrobots. This paper presents the theoretical motivation and the first implementation of a multi-stage, highly miniaturized EHD device, which can provide both improved absolute power output and power density as compared to single-stage devices. A laser microfabricated, folded electrode design reduces component count and assembly time. Data from one, two, and three-stage devices demonstrates a near linear scaling of output force with stage count, indicating inter-stage ducting successfully reduces losses. Device lifetime is assessed to validate the use of stainless-steel emission electrodes. Areal thrust, force density, and volumetric power density for the three-stage device are among the highest ever measured from an EHD actuator.