Ionic wind is a potential future thermal management solution for small-form-factor devices such as desktop and laptop computers, car electronics, tablets, etc. This phenomenon is physically very complex and requires much more research through experimentation and numerical simulation to solve many of the challenges associated with it. These challenges must be remedied for ionic wind to be considered for widespread implementation as a replacement for fans in thermal management. This study employed COMSOL Multiphysics® to develop a general simulation methodology that can quickly test various ionic wind geometries and configurations with the intent of streamlining the optimization process for ionic wind cooling. The simulation methodology developed herein was successful in replicating studies using other geometrically-dependent simulation schemes and was also applied to unique geometries that could be used for ionic wind cooling in the future. Experiments are needed to further validate the results, but this work serves as a good initial step for ionic wind cooling development.
