Revisiting the methodological approach to some application oriented unipolar corona investigations focusing interfacial properties of the ionised region

This study gives new insight into unipolar coronas with special regard to the governing parameters, of practical value, for the outer edge of the ionisation region. The shape and local radius of that interface are fully determined according to a capillary‐based scheme, whose original application can be explained by a long‐range collective containment effect presumably exerted by internal streamers. Properly implemented indirect experiments furnish supportive features, especially used to reconstruct interfacial anomalies. The adopted cross‐sectorial approach allows traditional pre‐breakdown Townsend/Meek criteria to be circumvented for the benefit of computational simplification, other than precision when strongly non‐uniform fields are, as usual, involved. This represents a genuine disruptive paradigm change whose additional advantages are reflected in clearer interpretations of both Kaptsov hypothesis and maximum thrust density impressed, next to the interface, to air neutrals. Even the corona current–voltage characteristic has been called into play to sustain the capillary model with convincing arguments. These claims existence of a unifying theoretical substrate for a number of pre‐breakdown interfacial phenomena, whatever the state of matter.