Experimental investigation of surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator based on fluorinated polyimide

In this paper, the mechanical performance, dielectric lifetime and material properties of the fluorinated polyimide (F-PI) based surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD) plasma actuator are studied and compared with a conventional polyimide (PI) based actuator. The results show that the force efficiency of the F-PI based actuator kept almost unchanged during 20 h of plasma discharge aging. Besides, dielectric lifetime of the F-PI based actuator was about three times as long as the PI based actuator at the applied sine voltage of 10 kV and frequency of 6 kHz. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show that surface of the F-PI based actuator became more rough but kept integrated after aging, while that of the PI based actuator was severely etched by plasma. And the maximum surface temperature of the F-PI based actuator was about 18% lower than that of the PI based actuator. Furthermore, it was confirmed by X–ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) that C–F and C–F_n groups were incorporated onto the surface of the dielectric after fluorination, which was conductive to longer dielectric lifetime.