Electrohydrodynamic conduction induced convection in a film with interface charge

Film transportation driven by Electrohydrodynamic(EHD) conduction pumping has become a new prospect in many micro-scale industrial applications. This work numerically studied the electro-convection in a film induced by EHD conduction pumping. The effect of the interface charge on the heterocharge layer and the flow pattern has been carefully investigated. A 2-D geometry with flush electrodes situated at the bottom of a cavity was considered, and the EHD conduction flow was generated by both space charge and interface charge with the Onsager-Wien effect. Results show that the height of the heterocharge layer decreases due to the attraction by the interface charge. The interface charge also affects the flow pattern and contributes to the enhancement of the overall flow intensity. The average velocity of the flow field increases by 24.1% and the total kinetic energy increases by 44.1% within the parameters studied in this paper.