ISSN 1063-780X, Plasma Physics Reports, 2011, Vol. 37, No. 12, pp. 1053–1057. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2011. Original Russian Text © V.V. Andreev, Yu.P. Pichugin, V.G. Telegin, G.G. Telegin, 2011, published in Fizika Plazmy, 2011, Vol. 37, No. 12, pp. 1130–1135. 1053 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years, studies of electric-discharge meth- ods for affecting the parameters of the boundary layer arising near a body streamlined by a high-speed air flow, as well as for control of burning in gas flows, have attracted considerable interest [1, 2]. In this context, the most challenging problems are the search for opti- mal regimes of discharge development in gas flows; determination of the energy deposited in the dis- charge; study of the influence of the discharge on sur- face friction and heat exchange in the flow boundary layer and the local structure of this layer; and optimi- zation of plasmachemical atomic and molecular pro- cesses in gas discharges. From the practical stand- point, these methods can be used to change the struc- ture of shock waves generated by aircraft, control the flow around a body, and increase the ignition effi- ciency of air–fuel mixtures. The objective of the present study was to investigate electric discharges operating between electrodes mov- ing with respect to one another in atmospheric-pres- sure air, in particular, to determine the spatiotemporal characteristics of the new type of discharge with mov- ing electrodes and optimize the parameters of the dis- charge for solving some problems of plasma aerody- namics. 2. EXPERIMENTAL DEVICE In many studies concerning this subject, situations were considered in which an air–plasma flow was inci- dent on a body surface. However, in practice, the body itself is often moving in the atmosphere. The latter sit- uation can be modeled experimentally by using objects moving in atmospheric air, as is the case in our electro- gasdynamic device (see Fig. 1) [3–5]. The device consists of rotating dielectric disk- shaped barrier 1; electrode 2 for visualization of the barrier discharge (BD); electrode 3, which has a glid- ing contact with barrier 1; high-voltage dc power sup- ply 4, to which electrodes 2 and 3 are connected; elec- tric motor 5, which rotates barrier 1; and solid elec- trode 8. Electrodes 2 and 3 are situated from one side of the barrier, while solid electrode 8 is adjacent to the barrier from the other side. The equivalent electric cir- cuit of the device is shown in Fig. 2. The device operates as follows. At a sufficient elec- tric field strength in the gap between the barrier and the front edge of electrode 2, to which the barrier runs, an electric discharge arises, which consists of micro- discharge 6 and near-barrier spot 7. It is a sort of front- edge discharge consisting of separate series of micro- discharges, each of which lasts for several tens of nanoseconds. Stable repetition of the microdischarge pattern is provided by electrodes 3, having a gliding contact with rotating dielectric barrier 1. In this case, the recharging of the moving barrier surface is more homogeneous, because gas-discharge processes on the LOW-TEMPERATURE PLASMA Study of Electric Discharges between Moving Electrodes in Air V. V. Andreev, Yu. P. Pichugin, V. G. Telegin, and G. G. Telegin Chuvash State University, Moskovskii pr. 15, Cheboksary, 428015 Russia Received April 14, 2011 Abstract—A barrier electric discharge excited between a fixed electrode and a rotating electrode covered with a dielectric layer in atmospheric-pressure air is studied experimentally. A distinctive feature of this type of dis- charge is that it operates at a constant voltage between the electrodes. An advantage of the proposed method for plasma generation in the boundary layer of the rotating electrode (e.g., for studying the influence of plasma on air flows) is the variety of forms of the discharge and conditions for its initiation, simplicity of the design of the discharge system, and ease of its practical implementation DOI: 10.1134/S1063780X11110018 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 2 1 3 Ω Top view Ω Fig. 1. Schematic of the electrogasdynamic device with a moving solid electrode adjacent to the rotating barrier (see the text).