Corona Discharge-based Catalyzed Artificial Rainfall Device Using Charged Particles

Artificial rainfall technology is one of the effective means to improve the distribution of atmospheric water resources.After discovering that charged particles have the effect of promo ting the condensation of small droplets,the charged particle-catalyzed artificial rainfall techno logy that generates charged particles based on the corona discharge phenomenon to achieve th e aerosol charging process has attracted widespread attention.In 2016,the School of Electrica l and Electronic Engineering of Huazhong University of Science and Technology initiated the National Key R & D Program "New Principles,New Technologies and Application Demonstr ation of Charged Particle Catalyzed Artificial Rain and Snow(Tianshui Project)".It aims to e xplore the specific effects of this method by studying the principles of this technology and dev eloping application practices in the mountainous region in northwestern China,and to seek ne w ways to alleviate water resources problems in China.In the early stage of the project,the ex perimental team carried out many indoor and small-scale experimental studies.After reaching certain conclusions,it is planned to build rain base stations in Gansu and Ningxia to carry out related rain effect verification experiments.To develop a charged particle generator based on corona discharge that is suitable for the external field environment,to achieve efficient genera tion of charged particles,and to explore the actual effects of charged particle catalytic artificia l rainfall technology in the actual harsh natural environment.This article aims at the design requirements of charged particle-catalyzed artificial rainfal l devices applied in the external field environment.First,the article summarizes the previous e xperience of prototype development and testing,and uses finite element simulation to analyze and compare the discharge effect and practical application factors of several different electrod e structures.The blade electrode structure is selected as the electrode used in the device design structure.Then,in order to facilitate the installation and maintenance of the rain device in the field environment of the field experiment base station,based on the idea of modularity,the ele ctrode module unit was designed,and it was combined into several different forms of charged particle catalytic rain devices for different geographical environments.At present,all the cons truction projects of the five experimental devices planned to be built in the two experimental b ase stations in Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region have been completed,an d discharge tests have been carried out to verify their operational effects.Finally,in order to e valuate the effect of the charged particles generated by the experiment,on the basis of the original meteorological nodes near the two base stations,multiple meteorological monitoring node s were installed to form two meteorological monitoring networks.Use the online monitoring s oftware to observe the meteorological monitoring network in real time.When the meteorologi cal conditions at the location of the experimental base station reach the ideal conditions,a lon g-term charged particle catalyzed artificial rainfall experiment will be carried out.The research work carried out in this paper has laid the foundation for the later formal fie ld-charged particle-catalyzed artificial rainfall experimental research,which can provide refer ence for the theoretical work,device design,engineering practice,and effect evaluation in rela ted fields.