Modeling Electrical Structure of the Artificial Charged Aerosol Cloud

Abstract:

The electric structure of the unipolar charged aerosol cloud is considered. The cloud of the volume about 30 cubic meters is generated in the open atmosphere by the original aeroelectrical facility consisting of the source of the aquated ions and the high-voltage discharger. Representing the charge density distribution as a superposition of regular and irregular parts, a model of the electrical structure of the cloud is developed. The regular part is calculated under the stationary current approximation taking into account the source current structure, the shape of the cloud, and results of the multi-point measurements of the electric field and conductivity in the vicinity of the cloud. The irregular part describes random spatiotemporal fluctuations of the charge density which are assumed to be proportional to the aerosol number density. It is shown that a quasi-electrostatic field of the charged aerosol is characterized by significant spatial fluctuations showing the scale invariance. The mean-square fluctuations of the voltage between different parts of the cloud are proportional to the square root of its linear dimensions and may reach significant values even in the absence of the regular field. The basic parameters of the fluctuating spatial structure of the electric field inside the charged aerosol cloud are estimated. It is shown that the charge density fluctuations could lead to a significant (up to 2,5 times) local enhancement of the electric field as compared to the field of the regular part of the charge density. The above effect could serve as one of the important mechanisms of the spark initiation.