Abstract
This paper presents experimental observation of asymmetric electrohydrodynamic flow generated around a pair of symmetric coplanar electrodes. Electrodes are attached on the bottom of the cavity containing a dielectric liquid, i.e., a mixture of dodecane and 0.5% wt Span80. In the first experiment, an AC voltage of 1500 V is applied with the frequency varying in the range 10~500 hz and the left electrode being grounded. The flow patterns show that the center line of vortices is unexpectedly tilted to the left side. If the right side electrode is grounded, the center line is tilted to the right side. The magnitude of the fluid velocity shows an irregular variation with the frequency in the range 10 Hz~100 Hz, beyond which it simply decays. In the second experiment, we applied fixed AC with 1000 V and 60 Hz superposed by DC voltage varying in the range -1000 V ~ +1000 V. The center line of the flow pattern is tilted to the right side with positive DC voltage and to the left side with negative DC. We have managed to show that the flow pattern can be symmetric with a suitable combination of DC and AC, e.g., DC 850 V plus AC 1000 V with the frequency 10 Hz.