Experimental Study of Discharge with Flexible Electrodes at Intermediate Pressure for Radar Cross Section Reduction

In this experimental research, the characteristics of the discharge generated using a flexible electrode at intermediate pressure were investigated. We confirmed the discharge patterns according to the pulse width and frequency of a pulse generator with a fixed voltage under a pressure of 0.3 atm, which is the pressure at a typical flight altitude. Uniform discharge was found to occur at a frequency of 10 kHz with a pulse width of 4 μs and at a frequency of 20 kHz with a pulse width of 3 μs. To analyze the trend of discharge patterns, the voltage and current waveforms of the discharge in each condition were measured. In addition, the power dissipated by one cycle was calculated from the measured voltage and current waveforms. From the measurement and calculation results, it was confirmed that the dissipated power was large when the discharge occurred at a frequency of 20 kHz with a pulse width of 3 μs, that is, the brighter and more uniform discharge pattern, which was found to be the optimal discharge condition for the flexible electrode at a pressure of 0.3 atm.